Plot News indicator (version 3.0)

hi Hanover:

I got a suggestion for perpetuating the use of Plot News Indicator w/o revealing your source code, which might interest you.

I'm guessing in your NewsSetup.EXE, you are using regexp to parse word patterns in the FF news page html to identify news events and this is the only piece of code that needs to change to read the new FF html format?

If that be the case, then you could maybe remove the existing hardcoded regexp in NewsSetup.EXE and replace with code to get/read an external TXT file from where NewsSetup.EXE will now import it's regexp code. This has the advantage of being freely editable to accomodate future changes in FF News page too.

I know it's a bit more than just that, as you would also need to have some minimal validation for the text being read from the external TXT file to ensure it's only in your specified format that you set it up to accept.

As a template, you could also attach here (along with the new NewsSetup.EXE), an example of "a correctly formatted sample regexp" TXT file which works for a sample FF html page. Have this sample data in the top lines of this TXT file beginning with some "comment" char. Sounds like a custom INF file, no?

This way I believe you won't have to maintain this amazing piece of code and dudes who can get it to work for themselves can also freely share with those who are not coders :-)

To make it sound simple I made an aweful number of assumptions, so do excuse me on that :-)

Cheers.

Sleek,

Thanks for your suggestion, and your kind words.

The news downloader is written in Clarion. Unless somebody has already purchased the Clarion compiler (cost approx US$2,000), I doubt that the source code would be useful to them. I don't use regex, instead my Clarion code parses the HTML on a character by character basis.

A Forex Factory member threatened to hold me responsible for computer damages that he alleges were caused by Plot News. That is the overriding reason that it's no longer available publicly.

David

Re: Recent Version of Recent News: v. 320

Didn't check my email where I have certain things sent for a while, so was surprised retroactively when the latest version of Recent News appeared. This is the fourth version of Plot_News according to my reckoning and is a big improvement over its most similar predecessor which appeared in January 2009, loading immediately and requiring no perceptible amount of CPU. This version is totally simple to use (as was the 2009 one) and in keeping with my stated (to myself) aim of making forex trading idiot proof, fits the bill - though still miss using NewsCal once a week to download the data, especially if someone is there to see how technically inclined I am. (but that's fine since for some reason I'm now the only person who can't seem to get NewsCal to work instead of the only person who can.) Since I rarely look back beyond the current week to find out "what caused that?" there's no problem there. Only criticism I have is that it ought to be called Plot_News, or Plot_News Idiot Version (to differentiate it from the real man's indicator) or something. I tell you it's pretty unlikely there is another forex indicator in existence that possesses the indispensible attributes of Plot_News (enumerated in my several relatively recent posts here) for knowing about news events.

Oh Well - back to finding the time on the chart, translating it from GMT, then going to FF main page to find out what the ... happened. (The idea was so off-putting I did this post instead.)

Could this be an FF-website-HTML-page-related SNAFU with the new Recent News v. 320 indicator? (Nothing after JPY Monitary Policy Statement and Overnight Call Rate, 3:24 GMT.)

Nice you have so many indicators to modify now, Hanover, when it suddenly strikes FF's fancy to change the format!

ok - suddenly Recent News v. 320 appears to be working again, with a minor adjustment to compensate for DLS time here in the U.S. There is no explanation that I can see for this, that is, if they changed the format of the file it uses at FF back on Wed. (when the indicator stopped working) it should still be screwed up now, unless they changed it back...

Boy if this were not a .exe file I would hire someone to make me one and tell me how to deal with the FF excentricities!

Oops. Looks like the last available billiard ball is CHF Retail Sales, at 4:15 a.m. EST (This being written at 8:00 a.m.) this morning. No further billiard balls are available for Recent News v. 320 as of this writing.

Alright - Now it's back on again, and shows events clear through to Thursday at 4:30 a.m. EDT on a M15 chart, the highest I have the indicator set to show at. Am keeping NewsCal attached to a hidden chart with the +1=min. Alert set to sound, just in case.

Recent News v. 320 is showing no further events this week. Can't figure it out.

Bruce,

Plot News v 3.20 still working OK for me (see screenshot). I'm running Peppersone MT4 build 427 and Windows XP Home SP2.

Is your MT4 installed under the Program Files folder? This can cause problems with user access permissions if you're running Win7 or Vista (see nubcake's comprehensive explanations — posts #201, 205, 206 etc). Long story short, it's safer to install MT4 somewhere like C:/MT4 rather than C:/Program Files (x86)/MT4

David

Maybe i should try setting it to show in the indcator window. That makes your M15 chart above look nice and readable, and is another added flexibility of the indicator. Must look up Better Volumes (though am aware some periods and timeframes can be flattering to indiators) looks to be predictive. As it is right now only have Recent News on the one minute chart so it shows exactly where each event is. I use that for entries & scalping. I have totally neutered all W7's nasty personality problems as regards doing what I want in program files, though don't know if would be able to duplicate it again (this was in 2010) since they've pulled (actually they neutered it) some of the freeware from the internet that I used to achieve the less intrusive/destructive OS character. Have become used to mostly a single 500 SMA on M1, M5 and H1 charts to make entrances. Am too inattentive for the scalping but the H1 acts as a long TF when set to smallest size allowing large view and pending orders. (This way am less likely to get nervous and bail.) Also zzSemafor, which can be confusing do to the so-called repainting, but am able to compensate, usually for that. Otherwsie there's just my own brilliant BandsCross occasionally. (outside bands only, doesn't even show the MA.)

Try and do a Google search lately? Jeezziz... My theory is that a lot of geeks, like the ones they hire at Microsoft, have their brains overextended, which have just enough capacity for the geeky department and nothing left over for regular decisions: case in point: you can't get to the last post anymore in FF - and How dya Like those New Favicons? Even if you were able finally to get to the last post by skiping the maximum number of pages for thirty minutes, and then by luck remembered to send a favicon, how you supposed to know it's from Forex Factory? Remember hovering favicons on desktop in W2000 and it showed a big preview? Now that was designed by some clever coders. It's now impossible to disable the so-tiny-as-to-be-completely-uninteligible previews that rise up unexpectedly from the taskbar of W7 (I tried a couple of fixes including a carefully guided regedit. Nothing works.) and cause you to close the window of the preview, rather than the one you want to close.

Au contraire the news indicator. Great you were able to get the plug-and-play version to not use any CPU. Looks like this is the commercial version!

Pardon the off-topic rant:

Cyprus style haircuts for regular depositers? Bill English, huh. Green Party. (For all I know he may be your best friend, hanover, but and nevertheless) Have 'em drawn and quartered! Or at least locked up. Course this is a logical next step after MF Global. Spose your money's safe in a forex account?

Can't say that I follow politics, but my experience is that all our politicians here (in NZ) seem to do is increase taxes as surreptitiously as possible, and then dole out wealth to the societal groups that they believe will return the most votes, come election time.

Curiously, our Prime Minister John Key apparently made several million dollars out of forex. Then I guess he got bored with making money, so he decided that running a country would prove to be an interesting diversion, while he contemplates his next career move.

I shall attempt to follow in his footsteps...

Hillary (Clinton) made a killing in trading... porkbellies... at Refco, apparently. hahaha. (big scandal @ 2005 when it collapsed) Just the other day Max Keiser was saying or had a guest that said she put $1000 in and in a month took out $100,000. They also said something about her account manager, who they said must have been engaged in some kind of manipulation - believe they called it front-running. And that's how she got her start.

Hi Hanover. This week v. 320 gives last plot of the week as JPY Current Account, Thurs. 4:40 GMT. That's 0:40 on IBFX US (which is GMT-4). The same is true on my FXM platform but it's also GMT-4, and without some different broker time vs. local time setup right now can't tell if a different broker time would affect it.

Hello David,

I need Plot News indicator's v3.20 ZIP file & some short guide to make it workable on MT4 charts. It's a great work by you. I am MT4 programmer, but not anywhere in Clarion or DLL's. Regards,

qtasleem
Canada

(Looks like FF has added a new view obstruction panel at bot. of page which expands as soon as you try to scroll. Clever. Tho am glad they're letting us skip to end of thread again.) V. 320 had all events this last week thru Fri. Believe can test this on a long TF such as H1 all-the-way compressed and that given that all days are showing events on Mon. the ones for Thurs. & Fri. will be functioning when the time comes. Will try and remember to check that at beginning of coming weeks.

Hello David. I am new to FF but not new to Forex. I am working on my own MT4 EAs and indicators.

Just wanted to say that I love your work! The thoughtful layout and design coupled with the incredibly good installation management is quite amazing. I am very impressed with Plot News.

It is very much a shame that one person could derail your excellent work. Maybe you could come back with a release that describes one of the features as "This program will randomly crash and destroy the clients computer. Anyone downloading and installing Plot News v X.XX accepts the agreement that Plot News v X.XX will crash and destroy the users computer (YOU) at will. This action may be random and/or it may or may not be directly related to the Karma that the user has established to-date in life". Anyone with Good Karma will probably be spared.

Unfortunately, I do not have Plot News v 3.20. I have Plot News v 3.10 installed. I see the colored numbers that I can hover over to see what the event is but that is it. Nothing in window 2. Actually, that is still useful to me. I haven't found another one that I honestly say that I like.

Cheers!

Hi Hanover, Recent News v. 320 has performed flawlessly since last time I wrote here, till this week: The last entry this week is Wed. at 18:00 GMT - US Federal Funds Rate. No amount of reloading or restarting seems to fix it. I don't understand it, tho of course I don't understand how these things work either. Did notice one time a few weeks ago when it showed everything throughout the week on the chart I mainly use, that another chart had things missing - at the end of the week - and couldn't get them to paint by open/closing the chart, etc. Mysterious.

Hello

I'm getting desperate, it's been 24hours I sit on the PC and try to install news indicator 3.30 ! 24 hours ! I ate some sandwiches, and forgot to buy a bottle of water, so desperate I am with this indicator...fist FF calendar to News.csv create a news.csv file but it's empty. Then the dates are from dec 2006 to July 2012 and 15 july 2013 to 17 july 2013 ! Then when I try to load the csv into MT4 what do I have to do ?

I am sorry, but (as stated at the beginning of post #1) this indicator does not work any more. I have explained why in post #336.

If you want the CSV file of news announcements, I've attached a ZIP of comma separated file of FF calendar news events from Jan 1, 2007 thru July 12,2013, timestamped New York EST (or DST when applicable). Columns (from left to right) are Date, Time, Currency, News description, Impact, Actual, Forecast, Previous, Revised from, Plotted wingdings symbol (ignore), Color value (ignore), Spacing (ignore), FF event ID
You can't load this file into MT4, but you can view it in Microsoft Excel. If you want an indicator that displays news events on your MT4 charts, there are other free news indicators developed by FiatFap, euclid and DerkWehler.

Note to FF moderators: since this indicator no longer operates correctly, then to avoid any further confusion, perhaps you could move this thread (and also its two predecessors, here and here) to the recycle bin. Thanks.