Extracted Thread (potential virus)

What is it?

Have you wished that MetaTrader was more keyboard friendly?

Have you longed to be able to change pairs with the press of a key?

Or smoothly glide up and down time frames without taking your eyes off price actions?

Do you yearn for these simple features available in trading platforms costing thousands of dollars?

Well long no more, your wish has been answered.

You get all this and more for the insanely low price of FREE!

MetaTrader Hotkey Extender is a standalone program that runs in your computer's system tray and adds new keyboard shortcuts to MetaTrader 4. It is not a complicated indicator or EA.

What are the keyboard shortcuts?

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-- To change tabs use h and j.

Note 1: If you change the order of the tabs (i.e. drag and drop) then you must do two things.

1) Update the MetaTrader profile. You can do this by one of two ways.

a) Close and reopen MetaTrader or
b) File/Profiles/Save as... and overwrite the current profile.

2) Then right click the MetaTrader Hotkey Extender icon and click Reload Script

Note 2: If you change profiles then you should do a Reload Script. I may auto-detect this in the future.

Note 3: There are times when you will see all the tabs get scanned before settling on the tab you want. This is just a limitation of the way MetaTrader handles its multiple windows and at this time there is nothing I can do about that. However, you can fix the tab order now (since version 1.3) by pressing the letter o (as in order).

Note 4: If the tabs just keep scanning and never settles on one it's because of a timing issue. I am trying to keep the scanning of the tabs fast, but if I set it too fast then it does not seem to find the right tab. If this happens to you let me know and I might add a custom setting so you can slow the scanning speed down for your computer.

-- To fix the order of the tabs use the letter o (as in order).

-- To change Periodicity you have these two choices: The letters n and m or ctrl+1-9.

-- To zoom in and out use v and b.

-- Use the comma, to go to the latest bar/candle.

-- F5 will Refresh the chart.

-- y to toggle period separators.

-- f to turn on crosshair.

-- k to hide MetaTrader. To restore right click icon and select "Restore Hidden".

Pro Tip (for right-handers):
Relax your hand with your first finger on the m key
and your other fingers across n, b, and v.
Then it's an easy reach to h and j to change your pair.

Play MetaTrader like an instrument!

What causes the tabs to get out of order?

If you use your mouse to click on a tab that changes the order. This is just how MetaTrader works.

How do I install this app?

There is no install. Put the executable wherever you want and run it. It does not change or create any registry entries.

Does this app work with MetaTrader 5?

Sorry, not at this time. Maybe in the future if a lot of people ask for it.

Changing Settings.

FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY!

Settings are stored in a file named settings.ini that gets created the first time your run the app. You can edit the hotkey assigned to an action.

If you don't want to use an action you can delete the line or change the hotkey to a blank.

If you put a bad value in then that action just won't work.

After you make a change you must restart the app (tip: Right click the icon and select Reload App.)

If you mess up, to reset everything back to default just delete the settings.ini file and restart the app.

RunOnStartup

Put the path to the file(s) you want to run when you start the app. If you want to start multiple files separate them with commas. For example:

RunOnStartup=c:\app\my app.exe,c:\program files\pipgetter\start.exe

Version History.

1.0 - Initial release
1.1 - New shortcut: f will turn on crosshair. (Because Ctrl+f is a pain.)
1.2 - New shortcut: k to hide MetaTrader.
1.3 - New shortcut: The letter o (as in order) to fix the Order of the tabs.
1.4 - New shortcut: a to toggle Auto Scroll.
2.0 - Configurable hotkeys.
2.1 - RunOnStartup option in settings.ini.

Oh, and one last thing.

Lots of code changes in 2.0 so consider it a beta for awhile.

Download:

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Cool idea - will give it a try - Thanks

Worked great...Outstanding.

I even had two separate MT4 instances from 2 different brokers open and it worked with both independently based on the one that had focus.

Also, the tiling/untiling tip helped with the rapid scanning of tabs issue. After I tiled/untiled it went one tab at a time.

Again great work.

Thanks for putting out this tool. As a nOObie to forex, this tool has helped me move around much faster and I'm able to see what's going on with minimal (almost no - still learning) mouse movements.

Excellent work bro, definitely in my forex tool belt to stay!

Thank you flyer for your great review. I appreciate it and am glad you like it.

I posted a small update and am doing a reply to the thread so that those who are subscribed will get notified.

Thanks

Uploaded version 1.2 with a new shortcut key.

Uploaded version 1.3 - New shortcut: The letter o (as in order) to fix the Order of the tabs.

I like the 1.3 for taking care of the tab order but at first I was not sure of the letter you used.

Also, the Restore Hidden will only restore the last hidden. If you hide two separate MT4 instances then the first one hidden can never be found again. In fact Task manager could not even find it although it did list it in the process tree but not the application list. i had to kill the process for MT4 and then restart MT4 to "find" it.

otherwise, still a great time saver.

I am open to suggestions on how to make this clearer.

Ok, I see what you're saying. I only tested this feature against a single window. I need to think about this problem for awhile.

Thanks

I don't believe that you could have made it clearer..perhaps state the letter o.

I tend not to use o,O,0,l,I,1 when I program so I don't get mixed up in the actual character.

I cannot open the zip fil unfortunately. The operation asks me to "Please insert the last disk of the Multi Volume Set and click OK to continue" which I gather indicates a corrupt file. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Traider, I just tested it and it downloaded and opened fine for me. I also know of others who have downloaded this last version without any problems. The file corruption might have happened during the download. I suggest trying again or try from a different computer.

Traider, it downloads fine for me. I would say for you to download the file again, this time change the location of the download to your desktop. Sometimes changing the location of the download will allow the file to save correctly. Hope this helps.


TraderZed

Thanks guys. I'll give it a go.

VBMark

It works a treat! Thanks a ton. Is there anyway we can automate the tabbing to say toggle across the tabs every 10 seconds or so? I trade 15, 5 minute crosses and wondered whether this was feasible. If not, it is superb as it is as it will ease my workload tremendously.

VBMark, that's simply GREAT!! Many thanks for that i'm a hotkey addict; i enter/exit/manage all my trades with hotkeys and lines. i haven't seen the order window or the terminal for ages. Now i'm able to switch timeframes simply perfectly.

could i add a little feature to the wishlist for future versions, please?

- toggle the AutoScroll feature on/off

that would be fantastic.. whenever i want to scroll a chart back into the past, i have to mouseclick (brr. there's not even a complicated keyboard shortcut via menu), switch the AS off, look back, then click again to switch the AS on as i want to keep them scrolling as new bars come.

if this would be possible.. many thanks forwards!

ps. suffering the endless tab select on my ole thinkpad.. would be great to have the ability to adjust the timing. thx!

(configurable keys would be great too. no gui if too complicated to do; just old-fashioned config.ini in plaintext format.. the timing variable could rest there too.. but that's too many wishes at once. it's already great as-is ;-)

Hi MaryJane,

I am very happy to hear that you are enjoying my little app.

I've added the AutoScroll toggle hotkey and it is available for download.

I've actually had configurable keys as a planed feature but then I felt I didn't need it. However, I think it's time I started working on it. This is going to take a little more time and I am going to try to work on it between all the crazy holiday chores. So no ETA on this.

Thank you for your suggestions

most excellent thank you a lot!!!
edit: thank you two lots!

LOL, thank you MJ for the two lots but really, one is great.

I had a little more free time than expected. So......

Version 2.0 with configurable hotkeys is now available for download.

Did you know there are two ways to scroll backwards (and forwards) with the keyboard shortcuts built into Metatrader?

Use Shift F12 to go backwards one bar at a time and F12 to go forward one bar at a time. Hold down F12 to go quickly.

Use Page Up to go backwards by pages and Page Down to go forward pages.

Being a keyboard junkie you probably already know this but I just thought I'd share.