mt4 clickable button in indicator

I posted this on mql4 but haven't received a response yet.

I wanted to know if there is a way to make a clickable button or object in an indicator and execute or change parameters depending if the button is clicked? What I want to do is essentially make a quick button that I can click to change pivot points from EST to GMT on the fly and apply it to similar code as well.

I don't believe this is possible without coding the button, and its associated logic in a language other than MQL4. Then this would be compiled as a DLL, and your MQL4 code could call functions within that DLL.

If you want to stay entirely within MQL4, the best way that I know of is to have an object (line, rectangle, etc) that can be moved by the user. The MQL4 is coded to keep track of the object's last known location within the price window. If the location has changed since the last price tick, then that's the equivalent of pressing the button. You could also perform different functions depending on whether the object has been moved up, down, left or right.

Thinking outside of the box, you could buy yourself a gaming keyboard (e.g. here), and program one of the keys to playback the keystrokes necessary to change the indicator settings (Ctrl-I, then the initial character of the indy's name, then Alt-E, etc). Or, if you don't want to spend money on hardware, then there is freeware available like autohotkey that allows you to reprogram your keyboard, i.e. program a key combo (say, Alt-Ctrl-F1) to playback a previously recorded series of keystrokes.

Hi Hord, ventured out of the skype room i see..

My first thought was the same as Hanover, use an object box and move it to perform the click you want.. in the code you would simply have an else statement with an axis coordinate..

My second thought was to write a script and then remap one of MT4's hot keys to the script to execute it... Maybe Hanover or someone far better than me could confirm the theory..

I'm always venturing out of the skype room.

I've talked to another about this and they agree an axis change detect can work well, I haven't seen the key remapping but I can see how that would work.

Not sure what type of controls your looking for that is do you just want to switch that changes from A to B or do you want to change a wider range of numbers but within an set range. or a range that is not define.

You can also use a mouse over in combination with the arrow keys to control input into an indicator, that is have a mouse over object on your screen when you place the move over it the arrow keys are read to see if thet user is pressing one, and if say up key will increase the value and down decrease it.

here are some screen clips to give you some ideas.

Keit


edit screen shots were removed

What I wanted to create was a "control panel" of sorts on the chart for a few of the indicators I use. Here's they are, maybe I'm being over ambitious:

-Pivot points- change quickly between GMT and EST
-Previous Day high/low - switch between previous day and a preset number of days back (i.e. show previous 4 days high low)
-toggle on and off stoch's quickly or another indicator
-toggle on and off fractals .
- toggle on and off other indicators that I reference a few times but don't need on all the time

I use these tools but don't necessarily need them all on at the same time and was wondering if it was possible to make a quick code for toggling. I figured instead of making multiple chart templates I can toggle the items I look at a few times a day on and off with a switch or click.

Hordane




All that you ask, can be done, but its a lot of work.

Two things you must under stand before you do this. one is how MT works and you must device a means to communitcate not only YOU with the program but program to program. If you try to code this into one code or use the iCustom() function to do it you'll slow your program down.

What you have to do first create a program to communicate between the trader and the platform that program then must relay that to the other programs. The second thing you must create a means (How to) communicate.

I removed the screen shots above as I though no one was interested, I have upload them again. (these are from my development computer so there not complete)

the first screen shot is my trade plateform its contains 3 windows. I removed all of MTs out put and created what I call a Control Program OverLay it actually over lays all 3 windows. It contains all the user controls and any other graphics that are shown. Its purpose is to keep an eye on any user inputs. The red boxes (these boxes are not part of my plateform) are user iCons, mouse over and other controls. The yellow boxes are the hot spots on the chart that are monitored by the program for user inputs. these are not visiable on the platform either. The yellow box in the center under the small chart is the main drop box. the two yellow boxes on the price chart are called 'Prompt Zone' The lower one is not active in these screen shot. The Prompt Zone label show only when its active. A prompt zone is open ended that is the zone extends pass the limits of the window itself, that is we can access price and time that is outside of the boundary of the window.

As you can see, I trade right off the platform. Placein and manageing orders, as well as stops, both server and client side.

The Third screen shot shows some of the control that are used to communicate between the programs. They actually show there values so the operater can read them easily. I use a similar means to create debuging in stead of the print statment.

I have deleloped many different controls; (not all are shown)

Drop: these are the iCons or other words etc.. that the controller looks at

Device: these are switches and there are 7 different types. From a simple on off switchs, lists, totals, rotatry, Date, Time, and comformation.

Shared: are a special device that is used by the programs to identify each other. The controller will tag these with its ID so each program knows which programs to communicate with.

Feed: This is a control that one program will stream information out to the other programs, it is continues and the information is predetermined. that is, say the current value of an inidcator. This can be read by other programs. This control can feed 2 values at a time like a study and signal line.

Port: This is similar to the Feed: except it doesnot automaticly feed any information. a program monitors its ports to see if another porgram is requestion information. it will feed that imformation out on request.

DisPatch: this is used to send trade information to the Execution program. It is only used for order placement and management.

Stream: this is a control that is used to handle the passing of information to an event handler it can pass things like error events, debugging, timed events, news events, etc... to an event handler. its the only control that can pass both numbers and stings. so one can create custom events.

The Second screen shot shows some of the control the trader has on the display out put it self, theres are other options that are not shown here. but to give some examples;

the Red box contains a mouse over menu theres another one that is not visible as the market is currently closed, when you place your mouse over a menu idem a pop up appears with the given information. only the ones in the blue color are active and avaible. The information in the pop up is updated in real time as it is displayed.

the yellow box is actually the second sub window, here I can display any indicator 'group' that is contained in the blue box and any single indicator form that group by selecting an iCon in the green box all will be displayed in the lower window. Now I can select these in any combinations, You can select all of them and each group will display one at a time and rotate and each indicator with in the group will rotate too with in the rotation of the group. This may sound comfusing but its actually done with a special custom indicator file that I call an 'iPack' file, it is an inidcator file that contains meny indicators but only one shows at a time, this was developed originally to get around MTs 8 buffer limit, and was expaned from there. Theres a lot more that I have done and most, not all, but most was done within MTs native code.

This is a long post and my use of the english language is not very good and I had to rewrite this meny times to make it understandable.


Keit

Edit[the screen shots were uploaded in the wrong order]

Hordane


I am currently rewriting this so some of the options are not shown above this is not the copy I am trading with. The reason I am writing a second post is to explain a new design that I am adding too this. I have developed the ability to call scripts from an EA. MTs limit of having only one ea or script runing at a time can be over come. Years ago I developed what I call an Active Library. I have expanded that in a way to call scripts. from another script/ea, and when that script ends control is past back to the calling script/ea. In this, one can call any number of scripts form one code block or can even chain call them.

you can not call a EA form another EA, as there exits can not be controled within a program. scripts can be controled. so we can call one script from another script or EA. An EA has the added ability to stay (lock) on the chart if one changes the currency pair displayed in the chart window a script is forced to end by MT when ever a profile is changed. so both code types have there benifits and limitations which you have to work with.

What I have are different scripts that I run; one before I trade, another to view the market, that is different pairs even though I trade only the euro usd I look at the others to get a snap shot of the whole market. (all pairs are shown in the same window, one at a time), then I run another script to update all my records and proformance stats when I am done for the session.

If you look at the second screen shot above you will see 4 icons between the blue and green boxes, one is a paddle lock, these will control the calling of the scripts off the trade platform by simiply draging an icon. The circlar arrow icon is the on off switch to turn off the plateform the paddlelock is the lock on for a pair, the other two are management scripts, if only the circlar icon is on then the platform will rotate with different currency pairs, it gets which ones to display form a portfolio file.


Keit

again if one expects un buttched use of the english language then they would be best avised to not read my posts.

There are very robust ways to accomplish these things as otehrs have shown.

There are also a few very simple ways.

I use two different methods to hide things.

The first way is just to use an extern bool variable Set_Hide = true. In the code there is a master if statement that says

if(Set_Hide) {
return(0)
}
else{
all of your other code
}

The downside is that I have to click on the indicator to change the Hide status.

The other method I use is for objects such as Trendlines and I just change the Timeframe visibility via a script. You can read a window visibility for indicators but i could not find a function to change the visibility of an indicator.

Simple but effective for me.

CockeyedCowboy

Can you tell us more more about how you did this? What functions did you use in mql4 language to do this?