jmont1 

So I do not need to get to the more specific per second and will be running it using price change not on every tick so do not waste time and effort for that. Tested it against multiple instruments and multiple accounts and it seems to differentiate correctly. If you are willing to add effort then I would appreciate being able to move the timer since i have others that are in lower left. Or would help if I could raise it a number of ticks on the left so I could place it say 6 ticks above bottom. But probably easier to simply use the place in the the corners.

So I can add more adjustability in the timer's position. I planned on doing that after you run the indicator as-is for a week or so. I don't know exactly when it destroys old entries, but I noticed yesterday, I had a trade on early AM, let it run through the session, and as the NEW session started, it lost track of that trade, even though I still had a position on. So I think it may not only be on a PC restart that it loses trades, but may be when a new session is encountered? Depending on how you trade, this may/may-not be an issue for you?

I was never sure weather this was just a thing you wanted to have... to have an idea of your current trade duration, or if you really needed to know exactly for every single trade you placed, how long it was active?

I had to ask some questions about using this account sync stuff on NT's forum, and one gentleman mentioned he had a similar issue, and the only way to really get accuracy of all LIVE trades taken, was to write/read from a text file created.

But at any rate, yes I can add some more movement of the text, but run the indie for a while and be sure it mostly works through various conditions, that way I dont have to mess with it more than necessary. I'll probably add similar customization for text that is in my BetterBarTimer indie.

jmont1 

Additionally, to be able to use this with a Strategy Builder BOT would require being able to "see" the time. Strategy Builder can only see "int's" and not doubles but I have never tried seeing a time. Any thoughts on how this could be exposed as an Int by a transparent plot by reading the hour and minute, then converting to minutes and plotting that int? So 1 hour and 44 minutes would plot transparently as 104 (60 + 44.) My use case would not need more than the minute info. So if the time was always rounded to closest minute and plotted transparently with the show transparent plots in data box I believe I could use it.

Ok... so a few things.

THIS indicator, as-is, is built with the mind of LIVE trades, placed manually. If it were me, I wouldn't use this particular indie for a strategy, or linked to a strategy at all. If it were me, and I were going to connect something like this to a bot, I would do it a different way.

If you were going to use a strategy, it would actually be easier to do the things you want to do.

If you need a strategy to see time in a trade, you can simply set a flag anytime a trade is taken, and store the time. On each bar/tic, you compare CURRENT time to the time set on last trade entry, using the TotalMinutes method, like so:

 

Code

double timeSince = (Time[0] - tradeEntryTime).TotalMinutes;

Where Time[0] would be the current DateTime of where the strat currently is, and tradeEntryTime is a DateTime you stored on your last entry. It would be captured like:

 

Code

if(entry long was taken) tradeEntryTime = Time[0];

Next, if you want to create something that will expose the times... you can actually expose variables(ints, doubles, bools, etc), dataseries OR plots. That's where you add them in the "properties" section below onBarUpdate. For the example, you can create a dataseries that will store the time in trade for each bar(using that totalMinutes example)... where it could be either a "-1" to indicate flat, or "0-∞" to indicate time in trade.

A good coding sample demonstrating exposing indicator values can be found HERE.

maxuscz 

Thank you so match, man you spend lot of time with my stupid question. Now we know how it must worked 8) Indicator name promise give me hope to get easy information about reversal bars. english is not my language and read how reversal bar must looked from PATs forum is not easy for me. 8) But im try (try to find easy way to do it 8-) Still must say - you make good job. thank you If you know another one indicator to detect reversal bars on ES chart - tell me. best regards Max

Happy to help out. But as ironic as it sounds, I don't actually use any indicators in my trading, so I wouldn't be able to advise you on any good reversal indicators.

Hi forrestang, I love the "bar timer" you created! Would it be possible to get the bar timer to actually float together with the current price? That would be really awesome!!!

emazing 

Hi forrestang, I love the "bar timer" you created! Would it be possible to get the bar timer to actually float together with the current price? That would be really awesome!!!

Thanks, that is on the list.

I was also think about adding the option to change to a countdown color if desired... I.e., if user sets 10 seconds, and time hits 10 seconds, change the color to something else for that last 10 seconds.

Yeah, that with the countdown color changing colors when it gets to a certain number, that one I have already. Unfortunately it works only on volume & tick bars. No time based bars ((

An idea for a simple system:

[EDIT]
It would be cool if you could add an alert when a new count is detected. For example, in the charts i posted, we could set an alert for a count == 2 say when price gets a x points from forming.
...
Alert upcoming count: "sound file abc"
Points away to alert: 1
...
[/EDIT]

When we have a higher or equal count == 2 go long at the open of the bar following a count == 1. Stop loss when price closes below the low of the bar at count == 2


To be clear, two levels to enter:


Some entries for today:


Some more...


This was today:

@forrestang

Just realised i was too quick and did not fully understoo how your indicator was rendering a new count. The simple system idea is still doable but it would need some more nuances. Sorry false alert.

trendisyourfriend 

@forrestang Just realised i was too quick and did not fully understoo how your indicator was rendering a new count. The simple system idea is still doable but it would need some more nuances. Sorry false alert.

Since you said false alert, I didn't look into it much.

But was the issue that you just didn't see WHEN that fractal was rendered? I.e., the fractal number appears to the left of where the signal was actually detected?

If so... use the 'showtriggers' bool, and maybe you can further refine what you were thinking, as that well show you WHEN on the chart the most recent fractal occurred.

forrestang 

Since you said false alert, I didn't look into it much. But was the issue that you just didn't see WHEN that fractal was rendered? I.e., the fractal number appears to the left of where the signal was actually detected? If so... use the 'showtriggers' bool, and maybe you can further refine what you were thinking, as that well show you WHEN on the chart the most recent fractal occurred.

Exactly didn't estimate correctly the timing for WHEN that fractal was rendered.