kronie 

provide some reliable means of backup and restoration and error detection before one looses their operating environment!

I keep my personal folders (eg My Documents which is where NT stores "your" data) on a separate drive to the OS (so OS backups/reinstalls are super quick). Then I have a 3rd drive that mirrors my drive containing my personal folders. I use a program called freefilesync which as name suggests is free. This can be set to run either manually or automatically at intervals determined by the user. It can take an exact mirror copy of your NT folders (or whatever you choose to backup) and as it only updates the most recent changes, the mirror or backup process is super fast.

NOTE: if running a a separate drive for your personal folders is not an option, at least have another external or internal drive to mirror your My Docs folder as described above. External/internal HDD's are super cheap now. (If I didn't have an additional drive for my personal folders (ge laptop), I would partition my hard drive so the OS and personal folders are separated, simply for the backup and reinstall benefits)

Also, I highly recommend renaming your NT folder in My Documents prior to updating the software version. Once the new version is installed, close NT, replace the user NT contents with the older version. This step will avoid corruptions caused by updating to a newer version of NT.

I agree with alot of the other guys here on the suggestions! Especially the programming suggestions == if guys like RJay, Fat Tails, Gomi and others say it== then it is real and useful because those guys know all of the programming side.


BUT ONE IMPORTANT FACET OF NINJA THAT WE MUST FIX --- IS THE DAILY USE AND PRACTICALLITY OF IT.

We should have A BUTTON ON THE TOOLBAR FOR INSTANTLY SETTING ~ GLOBAL CROSSHAIR TIME SCROLLING ~ ON OR OFF === THAT WOULD BE... SOOOO AWESOME..

AND THE SAME THING FOR ~ALLOW SELECTION or DRAG/DROP OF CHART SERIES~

This would be sooo great for increasing speed and functionality and user friendlyness.

Sooo many times I want to test two charts side by side...
and want to use the Global Cross hair --- but I have to go thru menu AND menu FOR EACH CHART to turn on Global Crosshair Time Scrolling. :O :O

A simple little button on the Toolbar or chart trader or some thing like that would be GREAT.

Same thing for Allow Selection or Drag/Drop of Chart Series --- many times you want to move an indicator up or down the scale -- and you have to go thru all the menus again. :O :O

I recently tested out GENESIS TRADE NAVIGATOR --- and in my opinion -- that is now the CADILLAC / MERCEDES BENZ of Trading Platforms. It used to be TRADE STATION. SIERRA CHARTS -- seem to me like a prepped Corvette or a Porsche. Not ultra luxurious but super super well done.

Ninja is like a BareBones Racer = can be super fast and capable especially once you customize it. It kind of feels like a chassis that you buy and you have to put in the engine (programs, indi's, etc..) to have it run like you want.

But the obsession with MENUs and MENUs... needs to end. For the love of God. ;p

The other things ===

DIFFERENT CROSSHAIRS- On my longer time frame chart I may just want a horizontal line - no vertical (Trade Navigator has 4 different types of Crosshairs) Very very cool

GLOBAL CROSSHAIRS -- Needs a lot more function -- One chart should be the "dominant" one. It should not be every single chart moving the Crosshair.

Also agree with another poster - that it would be awesome if the Global Crosshair was LINKED so if we have 3 CL charts and 3 ES -- I am not moving the ES crosshair a million places when I am moving the CL crosshair. That is completely unnecessary and distracting.

STAY IN DRAW MODE === SHOULD JUST BE DEFAULT == ALWAYS . But OPAL - THATS CRAZY! -- No .. No its not. You just right click on the chart and the drawing tool disables instantly. THAT SHOULD BE THE WAY ALWAYS.

Stay in Draw Mode default always --- then people should learn the way to go back to a regular cursor is a super fast and easy right click.

Because very very many time you want to put more than one trendline down... or horizontal line - etc.


A New Drawing tool

A one point click Horizontal Ray -- It is a very very good ray where we once we select it... we click on one point on the chart... One only... and it will "shoot a perfectly horizontal ray from that point to the right of the chart.

it is great for putting instant points of support and ressis.

OHHH AND FINALLY == CHANGE THE "CHART RULER" on the charts. It is arcane and cumbersome to have to hit 3 clicks to put this thing down.

We should just do a straight line from point to point that we want to measure.

And even more== a very very cool option would also me --
GIVE US THE OPTION to select what we want the ruler to display.
What we need is:
1. The OPTION TO DISPLAY total number of ABSOLUTE TICKS --- NOT Price minus Price but if Silver was bought up 10 ticks -- well then it should say 10 ticks move == NOT "0.355 ticks"
2. An option to DISPLAY -- DOLLAR MOVE PER CONTRACT OF THAT MOVE
3. The option to NOT HAVE THE DATA SERIES NAME ON THE INFORMATION. I already know it is CL no need to show RJay 8tick NoGapRangeBar CL etc etc.. on the little ruler. I know you do that to be able to measure multiple data series. Again giving the option cleans up a chart.


Those are my suggestions.

THANK YOU

Here's my two definite wish list items

1/ allow NT8 to import NT7 backup files so that one can keep all of one's market data, etc. intact

2/ build NT8 to use separate folders etc. from NT7. That way if one's data vendor supports multiple connections from the same IP address, one could run NT7 and NT8 in parallel (old version live, new version simulation), and allow a much safer transition period because one could see any automated strategies, etc. that need rewriting behaving in the correct way in the new version.

Fix the issue where long rectangles (or any object with more than 2 anchor points) disappear and reappear while scrolling through charts.

For example if you have a rectangle that spans several days/weeks worth of data. As you scroll through that data the rectangle will disappear at certain times.

This was initially reported as a bug on the NT forums over 2.5 years ago. The bug is still there.

kronie 

Backup / Restore is the most frustrating process / function that is in Ninja, as it has too many flaws to be reliable or useable. This need significant rethink. Here are some glaring disqualifiers significant to want to choose another trading platform (and remember, our objective is to prevent the trader / user from walking away). 1) Restore should honor the time, money and effort a user has invested in the platform and never say that the system restored all except the indicators. I went back over the log to see the exact wording, but its in that text box pop-up that reports the status of a restore operation at the conclusion of the process. Really the backup master folder is simply a zip compressed file. Logically it should never be subject to question, simply restore in place, however, for some reason, even when in the original state, the platform has no compilation errors, the backup/restore function magically creates them and refuses to re-instantiate those indicators, configurations and charts as they were. When this happens, all time, monetary and effort invested in getting things just right has been lost and you're forced to start from scratch. This has to stop with the newer NT8. 2) provide some pretest function so that the restore process can be confirmed to work, while the platform is in stable, operating condition. one should never wait until one is doing a restore process to find out there were errors that were not visible or descernable when the platform was running properly. one should never be deprived of the net sum of their investment in the ninja platform, without being able to correct the problems beforehand, if there are any problems. provide some dry run backup/restore process, which will reveal what it intends to mark as an error, before the platform is compromised and lost, while it is still running and functioning. provide some reliable means of backup and restoration and error detection before one looses their operating environment!

this recurring problem might be centered around the assemblies that are collected and reported on in the \Bin directory, and subject to file\utilities\remove N... Assembly


this last time it occurred to my installation, deletion manually of all the ".cs" files in the \bin, not the sub-directories, allowed me to have a clean compile capable installation. so whatever master directory these are controlled by, somehow gets corrupted, and should be capable of being re-synchronized instead of the lengthy process of deletion, re-finding and installation sequentially, all over again.

making the installation stable is a paramount improvement and significant discussion on this thread, as mentioned repeatedly and in ever so many experiences....

here's to a much more stable ninja, going fwd

kronie 

this recurring problem might be centered around the assemblies that are collected and reported on in the \Bin directory, and subject to file\utilities\remove N... Assembly

For what ever reason, the only way to avoid corruption of custom studies is to remove the entire NT folder in My Docs, proceed with an upgrade, and then replace the "new" NT folder in My Docs with your previous version which contains the custom files.

As far as backup is concerned - I have historic data for the US and ASX in addition to futures, so backup is a complete waste of time (unless I want to wait 4 hours for restore to complete). Hence I keep a mirror copy of the a fore mentioned folder which is synced regularly, plus I keep a copy of my customized instrument list in program files.

Not suggesting it's acceptable that this is required, however it has proved bulletproof over countless updates and for those times when corruptions have occurred. Fortunately it's a simple and timely process.

Hi!

Suggestions on top of my head (probably already mentionned dozens of times or even already possible):

- More precise timestamping on market data recordings;
- Ability for strategies to subscribe to market data;
- Stable strategy analyzer (mine always crashes..);
- Better integration with the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE;
- Ability to use alternate databases (SQL Server) instead of the bundled one;
- Ability to bulk import new instruments;
- Ability to create and trade synthetic instruments on-the-fly (for spread trading);
- MAE/MFE expressed in percentage terms;
- Better portfolio backtesting & trading: ability to automatically "Add()" all instruments in the portfolio to a given strategy
- Ability to try other connected market data feeds if a given instrument is unknown by the first one;
- Ability to save comprehensive optimizer results to file;
- CFD.




Lct

Not sure if these have been mentioned yet but I'd like a lot more backtesting features

1) Simulate buying on a bar close. Currently when a bar closes and I decide I want to buy/sell it happens on the open of the next bar. This is not a big deal for intra-day trading but for daily or weekly bars with gaps it makes simulating entering trades end-of-day very difficult. Tradestation has this capability.
2) If I'm testing a system across 6 ETFs, and I want to treat them as a portfolio, and I may not want to enter a trade in a new ETF if I'm already long in a different ETF. This would require simulating running the strategy on all 6 ETFs at the same time and each one knowing the position status of the others.
3) More statistics on testing a system on a portfolio of assets, like drawdowns, etc, has challenges similar to #2
4) Have an equity graph that displays portfolio or account value day by day, realized + unrealized gains, not just when positions are closed (realized). So if I'm in a trade for 3 months, on an equity graph it just shows a straight horizontal line, but many other systems will graph the unrealized ups and downs on the value of the account/portfolio.

windows 7 ultimate, SP1, fully updated with all windows system updates

I launched TaskMgr just to see what operation was firing off, while NT7 was hanging for an inordinate period of time, after firing off a new chart with a template.

SearchProtocolH (2 instances)
SearchIndexer.exe
SearchFilterHost

when cancelled, Ninja returned from hanging and responded with a fully functional trading system.

I don't know what causes this Microsoft function to be launched possibly by Ninja, possibly through co-incidence, however, when its canceled, Ninja frees up.

this is cause for some serious redesign ....

Be able to alternate the background color on the price axis at user define price intervals, say every 4 points on ES or whatever. This would make it easier to determine if profit targets or stops are in the desired ranges. If this already exists I would appreciate if someone points the way.

Thanks