How to draw a box in MT4?

Obvious MT4 newbie here..

Wanted to know if there is a best practice for drawing a box in MT4 for automating breakout trades.

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Hal

If you dont know how to do Virtual Box(define a box) to automate your trading(Not only looking for best practices)
Look at Pip_Boxer EA
He use boxing technic ....
He use CCI and other stuff...

If you look at the code and read the thread you will find your answer...

I suppose you dont mean to draw a rectangle box on the chart!

Thanks Zeuzere.

i dont care about seeing the box, just defining it and trading on breakouts of such box.

I am working on a trading system that combines box breakouts with RSI and ADX levels. I want to write a simple EA so that I could backtest (and forward test) the system.

I know more or less how to tell MT4 to open on the specific RSI and ADX mix but I dont know how to draw a virtual box and trigger a trade when the boxt is broken out of AND my other indicators are triggered.

I will looked at the pip boxer code but i am not as good a coder as the rest of everyone here. (newbie alert!) I could not follow the logic of the box.

I am not afraid of trying and messing up, i figure eventually i will get it right.

Thanks again!

Hal

This should get you started. Obviously you have to set the start and end times appropriately.

Thank you tesla

I dont just want it to work .. i want to actually understand the how and why of it.

I will figure out the chunk of code you have posted. I am sure it will help me once I understand what it is doing.

Thansk again.

In MetaEditor, if you press F1 while you've got the cursor on a function name in the code (i.e. iHighest) you'll get a fairly comprehensive description of the function and its parameters.

Feel free to ask more questions if you get stuck, plenty of people here willing to help.

Tips...
Im working on a oscillator that tell me when break out occure,
and i use this ( 0 == BreakOut )
- I define 3 period : lets say 200, 100 and 50
- At every moment, i count how much candle is hit in the past(In those period at the current price)
--if after a close of the candle you get a 0 value, then you know, theres no candle hit for the past X period.
--This way you can put value on each move(Like a gauge)
--Ex.: 0 To 5, You do something, otherwise is not a real breakout...

I use this technic and i will enventully combine this with volume. If both are good i have my break out...
But is just a tips...

You could define High/Low for the period you like by:
- lets say , High/Low for yesterday,
- by time(Like PipBoxer)
- or use a indicator like CCI (To get top and bottom, then you retreive your price High/low for that period).

If you need help, ask a clear question, and i will try to answer!

Thanks Zeuzere and tesla. For now I have enough to play with and I am sure that I will have more specific questions along the way. Now its time to code and cross my fingers!

Thanks again guys!

I have been reluctant to ask questions because I dont want to ask stupid questions but I have to admit this is harder than I thought for someone who is starting from square one and has no previous programming experience.

... I feel stuck.

Here is what I am trying to do and understand for now before i move forward.....

I am trying to write code that says:

Open long position If

RSI(21) >= 50

and if

RSI(21) has been going up in the last 5 candles

and if

ADX(14) has crossed from south of 40 to north of 40


This is just one part of my idea.. the box comes later. First I need to get this part working. I thought I would know how from reading the tutorials but that is not the case.

As a complete coding beginner (who me??) I am looking at code here and there and trying to make sense out of it. I feel that I need some serious hand-holding. I dont know where to put things within the framework generated by the editor. (ie: initialization, deinitialization or start) However, i am determined to hammer this stuff though my cranium one way or another.

Does anyone know of an EA-coding class somewhere that I can take? I am serious about learning. I am just too junior at this to get anything going on my own and I dont want to copy other peoples code because I feel that I would not be learning anything that way.

Do you know basic stuff like :

 

1. For, switch, function, parameter, double, int, etc....

Or you start from nothing?

If you start from nothing, i suggest you take a small basic C language course.
They are free on the net and its easy (Well, not so for beginner)...
You can programme basic thing in just a weekend if your serious about that...

Because i will not explain how to program, but i can help you remove some cloud to get you going, if you know the basic of programming.

Go see this:
MT4 learning how to program Post#1
Well done

Read it, after you will be able to start nicely

Thanks for the pointer Zeuzere, I am reading all these lessons today. looks very promising. This should get me started.

Thanks again

Yes I am starting from scratch, but that was yesterday. Today, even now I already have more than just scratch. Those lessons from coders guru are excellent. Another great resource is here: http://articles.mql4.com/84 This article was very helpful because it lays out the different sections of the EA code.

Here is what I have learned so far.

• Obviously there are chunks of code that are somewhat constant from one EA to the next like the part to check the bars, and the part to check your account balance and so forth.

• It seems like the only part that really changes much is the “if” statements used to decide how to enter and exit the market.

What’s really cool is that if you compile and get errors on the bottom, you can select and right-click on the error and choose “go to line” from the pop-up menu, a little red pointer shows you where you have made your mistake within the code itself! How handy! Fix them one by one and before long I was able to get a file to compile without errors or warnings.

Yesss! I just wrote my first EA. Certainly not a fortune maker (yet) I called it appropriately: Prototype001

It checks for RSI levels and checks the movement of the RSI levels in the past 5 bars. and it opens long or short based on that. (at least that is what I think it does, I am testing it now to see if it actually works.)

Could this have been done differently up to this point? Im sure it could have. This is the first time I write one of these. Feel free to have a look at my humble EA and offer your critique. How would you have done it up to now?

Also, could someone expand on the stock definition of the predefined variable called: Point ?

Thanks!

Hal

"expand on the stock" ...
Hard to understand for me ;-) (i'm French)..Suppose you mean to explain?
if so... how do you add or substract 30pip from 1.2500 ?

30 * Point == 30 * 0.0001 == 0.0030 so 1.2500+0.0030
It give the good value to multiple.

4 decimal currency: Point will give 0.0001
2 decimal currency: Point will give 0.01

Aha! Thank you Zeuzere for a better explanation of "Point"

That is exactly what I needed. I understand what "Point" is now.

OK my experiment has been active with smiley face and everything for some time now and hasn't done anything. Im starting to wonder about the very likely scenario that my code sucks.

I think a better name for this thread would have been something like "EA Coding for Dummies 101"

Its ok. it'll get better with time. I have to go through this stage.

Anyway.. Here is a question. In the following expression:

iRSI(string symbol, int timeframe, int period, int applied_price, int shift)

What does this "shift" mean? I am thinking that it means periods in the past by bars on the current chart. But even I realize that could be a very vague interpretation. (Sometimes the online documentation for these variables has a very generic definition for them that does not really explain them very well.)


even baby steps in the right direction are better than no steps at all.

Buffer(Array) of value start at 0,
ex.:so to get the high of the fifth candle you would write High[4],
so shift is the candle position-1 starting from right to left.

To get all candle quantity you use 'Bars'-1

So if you want to create a RSI indicator for fun

you would do a iteration on all candle -1
ex.:
for(int x=0 ; x < Bars-1 ; x++){
Buffer[x]=IRSI(......,x);
}
but in fact you use:
int limit = Bars-IndicatorCounted();
for(int x=0 ; x < limit ; x++)<limit ;="" x=""><limit;x++){>
Buffer[x]=IRSI(......,x);
}

why IndicatorCounted? Because when you place your indicator for the first time on you chart no candle is painted so IndicatorCount is equal to all candle(Bars) after it will only give the amount of candle not changed(So everytime new value come in. you are not rebuilding everytime the indicator just adding new candle info.You use less resources.</limit;x++){></limit>

So would this make sense or am I wayyy off?

int limit = Bars-IndicatorCounted(); // ..Equals 'Bars' minus IndicatorCounted()
for(int x=0 ; x < limit ; x++) // For 'x' that equals zero, and is less than 'Limit', increase 'x' by one and go on to do the following....
{
// (Buffer[array] = iRSI(......,x)
High[x]=iRSI(NULL,0,21,PRICE_CLOSE,x); //Could Close[x] work here instead of High[x]?
}

Seems this will do an RSI on all previous candles and on each new one as it comes in without redoing the ones already there (is that correct?)

So, would it stand to reason that if I only wanted the last 5 bars then Limit could be set to '4' ... (?) and that would give me just the last 5 bars(?)

Something like(?):

int limit = 4;
for(int x=0 ; x < limit ; x++)
{
Close[x]=iRSI(NULL,0,21,PRICE_CLOSE,x);
}

If I am way off into neverland just let me know. I will rethink this.

First Close[] is define by the MQL Framework. You can only use it to retreive info...
But you can use your array.
ex.: double MyArray[]; or double MyLilttleBuz[];

Question? Why would you want to change the Candle Close Value?
You must instead give the RSI value to the buffer that draw the indicator(line)
Thats why in the 'int init()' section(function) you see :
SetIndexBuffer(0,XYZBuffer); <- used to create the buffer

It's the buffer that will receive the value, those value will be use by the application to draw the indicator line.

Also if you use 4 for the loop you would get only a line for 4 candle lenght... so you could not see info for the other candle(Historical testing let say)

also i write this:
for(int x=0 ; x < limit ; x++)

but in fact you would like to start from the end up to the most recent candle
so:
for(int x=limit ; x>=0 ; x--)
Why?

If your indicator is adding from past value, how could you add if you have not compute-it first?
ex.: if you want your indicator to show you if the current value is > 0 or < 0 compare to last value, you must be able to get the last value, but since you start from zero(Buffer[0]) to build your array, then Buffer[1],Buffer[2] does not have any value yet...

By the way... do you understand clearly how the indicator works?
Before building any EA you should try to build small custom indicator.
Like recreating by exemple RSI. Not buy reinventing the equation but using the RSI function.
So you can put the real indicator and your custom indicator side by side and see if you have done the right thing...