New to MT4 - can I sound an alarm on the bar close?

I'm intra-day trading and want to be alerted when a bar is completed. I notice that a bar close can be xx-seconds past the minute for server or system times. Is there a way to be notified on bar completion?? Thankyou

The delay that you face is due to the fact that a new candle is only drawn when a tick has come in past the end time of the previous candle. I can think of 2 ways to go about with this.

the easiest is to track for the opening of a new candle. then sound the alert

a more long winded way is to have an indicator that's time-based to fire every second and check if the candle's time has reached the end without waiting for a tick.

"check if the candle's time has reached the end without waiting for a tick." Any ideas on how to go about this? - if this is a programming function, where do I start looking? or Is there a way to identify the exact time at which a bar starts or closes??

This is actually a lot more troublesome than it sounds. since you can't rely on broker's time, you need to use TimeLocal() which gets your own computer time. Assuming the time between your computer and your broker is sync at the "seconds" level. you still need to factor in timezone difference. That means what is required is this.

get the open time of the current candle using Time[0], this gives you its time according to your broker timezone.
convert that time to your timezone by adding or subtracting the number of hours. get your chart's current timeframe using Period(), that'll be an integer describing number of minutes in each candle.
convert that to seconds by Period()*60. add this to the time you calculated previously and you get the proposed end time of the current candle.
using a while loop with Sleep(1000), that will allow you to have something done every second.
That "something" that needs to be done will be to check TimeLocal() with the candle end time you've calculated.

Note that this will only work if your computer time and your broker's server time has the same SECONDS value constantly.

regards,
Zen

with all that said, I still think the first method is the way to go,

the easiest is to track for the opening of a new candle. this can be done in a matter of 2 or 3 lines of code.

Thank you for your help - think I'm getting it:

I think you are right - the first track is better.

As a concept:
I can use the 'Time[0]' to get the open time of the bar
then
use the 'Timeframes' to determine the chart period
then
determine seconds in each bar from the chart period
then
add the seconds of the bar to the bar start time to determine the close time
then
use 'PlaySound' as the alarm

I have yet to look at each of these commands for details but should the above concept work?? or am I way off track

I'm only a few hours into MT4 but should I be programming this into a 'script'?

If you're looking for the opening of a new candle, you don't need to go through all that. Just a few lines of code in a simple indicator will suffice. Study the codes in this indicator and you'll see what I mean.

regards,
Zen

Dear All,

Is it possible to have a Candle open alarm indicator that sound after the candle open above or below a set price in such a way that:

1. the indicator will have a two set prices
2. the alarm goes off when a candle is opened above the higher price or below the lower price.
3. in addition with message alart

If there is any already existing kindly post thread/indicator OR somebody please code it.

Thanks.

Hello Traders,
I just joined this forum and was attempting to locate an alarm that would sound at the close of each bar or on the opening of a new bar as discussed above. I typically use a 15 or 30 minute chart. I was under the assumption that the new candle alarm posted in this thread might work. However I wasn't sure how to test it. I placed it in the backtester mode as bars formed to see, but heard nothing. I also didn't see anywhere in tool to choose a particular sound. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Strategy Tester will trigger the alerts if you enable them in the EA properties dialog. It won't actually emit an audible sound but the text of the alert will appear in the Journal tab so that you can verify that the alert is working as expected.

The sound can be changed as well if you go to Tools>Options and go to the Events tab. The default sound is called alert.wav but you can change it to any other compatible sound file in the sounds directory.

Thanks for the reply CodeMeister. Now to make sure I understood you correctly. I understand that an EA has the ability to function as you explained, but does the new candle alarm tool have such ability. In other words, I'm trading manually but when I apply just the new candle alarm tool to the chart the EA properties will control this indicator...right?

So by following the above procedure and placing the new candle alarm on a backtest chart, I should be able to see journal notes. I do not see any notes in journal regarding the indicator, just my EA. Thanks

I don't know if your indicator works or not. I was telling you about my experiences with my alert indicators. I use Strategy Tester to verify that my indicators work as expected. It is a very useful tool. Here for reference is one of the alerts in my EA.

2010.02.14 12:31:48 2010.01.29 17:45 KeltnerAlert AUDUSD,M15: Alert: AUDUSD Short setup for Keltner retracement.


If you are not seeing messages in the journal, then it suggests the alert itself is not working. Trading opens in a few hours so I guess you will know the answer then.

In my other post, I think I confused enabling alerts in EAs with enabling alerts in Strategy Tester and that was my error.

Ok, Thanks. I just assumed that the above posted indicator worked as it was a reply to another trader with the same interest. I know nothing about Metatrader coding, so perhaps someone esle will see this and clarify it for us. Thanks agian.

The above candle alarm does work. Glad to get that settled.
Is there a way to have alarm sound more than once to be sure it was heard?

That can be done with coding - there isn't a setting to control it. The tricky part is getting the interval between the sounds right, because the ticks have to be processed as well. I don't remember seeing anything like that done lately.

So I need an alarm with a "stutter". ha.
Thanks for the input. I'll get the programmer I've used in past to look at it for me.

Hi,

Just another idea. I use this free program called Time Left http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/ (Note this is not an affiliate link)

I have this set as a count down timer at the top of my screen. I need to know when the 5min bar closes so have set an alarm.

SO the best of both worlds - I can see how long is left of a bar + I get the alarm on each 5min.

If you want an alarm with a 'stutter' I believe you may be able to set a snooze on it

Plus it's not that obtrusive. See the screen short (time at the top right) There are lots of different ways you can customise this thing. I was quite impressed even just for the free version.

Mark

Thanks Marknn, I'll give it a look.

any one have indicator that Alert xSeconds prior to BAR complete ?
required input :
Look_For_Bar : 60m
xSeconds : 10

If any one have please share
Thanks.

That is probably what you're looking for