Please help with this indicator

Hello,

Im trying to build an indicator for volume. This my first attempt at writing an indicator starting from scratch and basing myself on thee betterolume indicator. I've managed to compile it, but when I load it on the screen it just has a black window with no bars on it. Can someone take a quick look and tell me what I'm doing wrong. Like I said, I am very very new to programming languages (MQL4 would be the first one I learn)

What I want the indicator to do is basically to display 4 different color bars depending on it's position in relation to an MA and certain levels based on the MA. Like this;

If volume<MA*0.66 then vol is low
If volume>=MA*0.66 && volume <=MA*1.33 then vol is normal/average
If vol>MA*1.3 && vol<=MA*2 then vol is high
If vol>MA*2 then vol is ultra high

For each type of volume the bar would change color. Here's what I have so far and hope someone can help me out. It's very frusrating that once I am finally able to compile the indicator, the separate window only shows blackness. So here it is, any help ould be greatly appreciated:


#property indicator_separate_window
#property indicator_buffers 5
#property indicator_color1 White
#property indicator_color2 DeepSkyBlue
#property indicator_color3 Red
#property indicator_color4 Purple
#property indicator_color5 Gray
#property indicator_width1 2
#property indicator_width2 2
#property indicator_width3 2
#property indicator_width4 2
extern int Number_of_Bars = 500;
extern int MA_Period = 50;
extern double Low_Setting = 0.66;
extern double Normal_Setting = 1.33;
extern double High_Setting = 2.0;
extern int LookBack= 20;
double LowV[], NormalV[], HighV[], Ult_HghV[], Av[];
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Custom indicator initialization function |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int init()
{
//---- indicators
SetIndexBuffer(0,White);
SetIndexStyle(0,DRAW_HISTOGRAM);
SetIndexLabel(0,"Lw");

SetIndexBuffer(1,DeepSkyBlue);
SetIndexStyle(1,DRAW_HISTOGRAM);
SetIndexLabel(1,"Normal");

SetIndexBuffer(2,Red);
SetIndexStyle(2,DRAW_HISTOGRAM);
SetIndexLabel(2,"Hgh");

SetIndexBuffer(3,Purple);
SetIndexStyle(3,DRAW_HISTOGRAM);
SetIndexLabel(3,"Ult_Hgh");

SetIndexBuffer(4,Gray);

IndicatorShortName("VSA Volume" );

//----
return(0);
}
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Custom indicator deitinialization function |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int deinit()
{
//----

//----
return(0);
}
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Custom indicator iteration function |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int start()
{
//----

double tempvol, Lwlevel, Normlevel, Hghlevel;
int CountedBars= IndicatorCounted();
int limit;

//---- last counted bar will be recounted
if(CountedBars>0) CountedBars--;
if ( Number_of_Bars == 0 )
Number_of_Bars = Bars-CountedBars;
limit=Number_of_Bars; //Bars-counted_bars;

for(int i=0; i<limit; i++)
{
Lwlevel= 0; Normlevel= 0; Hghlevel=0; LowV[i]=0; NormalV[i]= Volume[i];
HighV[i]= 0; Ult_HghV[i]= 0;
//-----------------------------Volume_MA-----------------------------
for ( int n=i;n<i+MA_Period;n++ )
{
tempvol= Volume[n] + tempvol;
}
Av[i] = NormalizeDouble(tempvol/MA_Period,0);

//-------------------------------------------------------------------

for ( n=i;n<i+LookBack;n++)
{
Lwlevel= Av[i]*Low_Setting;
Normlevel= Av[i]*Normal_Setting;
Hghlevel= Av[i]*High_Setting;
}

if (Volume[i] < Lwlevel)
{
LowV[i] = NormalizeDouble(Volume[i],0);
NormalV[i]= 0;
}

if (Volume[i] > Normlevel && Volume[i] <= Hghlevel)
{
LowV[i] = 0;
NormalV[i] = 0;
HighV[i] = NormalizeDouble(Volume[i],0);
}

if (Volume[i] > Hghlevel)
{
LowV[i] = 0;
NormalV[i] = 0;
HighV [i]= 0;
Ult_HghV[i] = NormalizeDouble(Volume[i],0);
}
}
//----
return(0);
}
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+

Hi tato,

check the code below
hope this help

This is excellent! Thank you very much. I'd spent like 8 hours trying different things and never got it to work. Now I can tweak this one a bit if I need any changes. Thanks a lot man, I really appreciate it.

One more thing, is there any way an additional condition can be added when calculating the MA of the volume? The contidion would be related to time. In a way that it only accumulates or sumss up the values of vol provided during certain market hours.

Something sort of like, if time is between 6 gmt and 19 gmt to include those values of vol when calculating the MA, and not the values of vol outside that timeframe. Im trying it out, but it returns weird results. Im guessing a modification would need to be done somewhere around:


for ( int n=i && (TimeHour(dt)>=5 && TimeHour(dt)<=19);n<i+MA_Period;n++ )
sum = Volume[n] + sum;
double Avg = sum/MA_Period;


Any help would be appreciated

do you mean you want to calculate average volume between 6 - 19 gmt?

you should divide sum with 13 (not the MA_Period parameter which is equals to 50) as there are 13 bars between 06 - 19 gmt (i assume you are using H1 TF), bar that open at 19 gmt should be excluded, as it show volume from 19 gmt until a second before 20 gmt

I tried like this:

for ( int n=i;n<i+MA_Period;n++ )
sum = Volume[n] + sum;
double Avg = (sum/MA_Period)/13;


and like this:

for ( int n=i;n<i+MA_Period;n++ )
sum = Volume[n] + sum;
double Avg = (sum/13)/MA_Period;

But then the Avg value went really low and now all bars are purple. Is there any way to establish the condition such as that if the Time for the variable n is between those parameters to consider it for the calculation of sum?

The reason I want to include this is because vol drops a lot during the majority of sydney and tokyo sessions and affects the vol bars when london comes in.

See file below. I draw three extra lines to show the level of LowAvg, NormalAvg and HighAvg

Thank you very much, that is exactly how I had planned it originaly, displaying the three lines, I had modified the one you posted earlier to at least display the MA, but this is what I originally wanted. It seems that now it only takes into account vol for between 6 and 19 GMT, is that correct?

Maybe I'll place some extern int at the beginning to change the time and modify the script accordingly so I can change the time as well. One question though, is the lookback variable used or can I delete it?

By the way, I have no idea how to interpret this part, but Im guessing this is where it only takes into account the vol for 6-19 GMT:

double sum = 0;
int Cnt = 0;
for ( int n=i;n<i+MA_Period;n++ )
{
if(TimeHour(Time[n])>=6 && TimeHour(Time[n])<19)
{
sum = Volume[n] + sum;
Cnt++;
}
}
double avg = sum/MathMax(1,Cnt);

Especifically the Cnt variable, what does it do? (This is just for knowledge purposes)

But thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for the great explanation, now i know how to implement that condition in loops if I ever want to write any other indicators with a similar condition to that one.

This programming stuff is fun, ESPECIALLY when there's someone like yourself helping me out.

Im trying to code an indicator which displays texts above a bar when certain criteria is met, however, it doesn't seem to show more than 1 message. How can I modify it so that more than one message is shown. This is what have so far for the object part:

int tCnt= 0;

if (Vol[i] == 1)
ObjectCreate("Weakness"+ tCnt, OBJ_TEXT,0,Time[i], High[i]+(300*Point));
ObjectSet("Weakness"+ tCnt, OBJPROP_ANGLE, 90);
ObjectSetText("Weakness" + tCnt,"P. Buying Climax",10,"Tahoma",White);tCnt = tCnt + 1;
if (Vol[i] == 2)
ObjectCreate("Weakness"+ tCnt, OBJ_TEXT,0,Time[i], High[i]+(300*Point));
ObjectSet("Weakness"+ tCnt, OBJPROP_ANGLE, 90);
ObjectSetText("Weakness" + tCnt,"Potential Sellers",10,"Tahoma",White);tCnt = tCnt + 1;


How can I modify it so it will show more than one same message (i.e. P. Buying Climax, Potential Sellers)?

Any help would be appreciated.

To create more than one object, you should use a different object name. from your example, you are trying to create text object with the same name, ie: "Weakness"+ tCnt. Because tCnt is assigned a zero value, object name will always be "Weakness0.

To differentiate object name, you can use "Weakness"+Time[i]. So, each object that is created and put at different bar, hence different time, will have a different name.

FYI, in MQL, datetime variable is actually an integer. It is a unix timestamp, showing the number of seconds elapsed since January 1st, 1970.

If you still stuck on the code, it's better to post the whole file

It worked great, but now I ran into another problem, but I´ll post it later as I have to go to work now. Just one question, what should I include in the deinit function to delete all the objects?

Thanks for your help by the way, you have been very helpful.

Providing that you use "Weakness" as the prefix for all the object name, you can use the following routine in deinit()

This way, you only delete objects created by the indicator and still keep the other objects in place.

But if you want the simplest code, ObjectsDeleteAll() will delete all objects.

Thanks, it worked great. Now I must keep on programming.

Is there any way I could modify this to include minutes, say time was 6:30 for example instead of 6:00?