Migrating from NT 7 to 8, UI help please & FDI

[johnnymustard]

Hello all and thank you in advance.

1) How can I set default settings for the drawing tools? I know the method of setting it up how I want and then saving it as a template. Then I have to load that template after I draw it on the chart.
Frankly, that isn't much faster than just doing it manually. As an example, trend lines always come up cornflower blue. I prefer them to be a different color. How can I change it to come up how I decide?

2) Can I configure the chart trader increment section with negative values? I tried a - sign and using parenthesis, didn't take. See the pic "ChartTrader".

3) There's an "OC" lime green box in the upper right corner of one chart. What does it mean? I suspect it means Order Cancelled because I did that on this chart, but I don't know. See the pic "OC".

4) Finally, I looked through the NT 8 indicator section and didn't find the Fractal Dimension Index. I've included a copy that works on NT 7. If someone is willing to convert it to NT 8 and post it for others, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you again, JM

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello johnnymustard,

Thanks for opening the thread. Allow me to answer these questions for you.

1) How can I set default settings for the drawing tools? I know the method of setting it up how I want and then saving it as a template. Then I have to load that template after I draw it on the chart.

You just need to save the template as "Default" Please see the documentation below for more information.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/index.html?working_with_drawing_tools__ob.htm#UnderstandingDrawingObjectTemplates

2) Can I configure the chart trader increment section with negative values? I tried a - sign and using parenthesis, didn't take. See the pic "ChartTrader".

The Order Quantity selector does not allow for negative values.

3) There's an "OC" lime green box in the upper right corner of one chart. What does it mean? I suspect it means Order Cancelled because I did that on this chart, but I don't know. See the pic "OC".

This means OCO has been activated. Please see the documentation here for more information: https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...OtherocoOrders

4) Finally, I looked through the NT 8 indicator section and didn't find the Fractal Dimension Index. I've included a copy that works on NT 7. If someone is willing to convert it to NT 8 and post it for others, that would be greatly appreciated.

In the support department we do not do client requested conversions as our time is limited and we are a small team. If you would like to do this on your own, I could provide you some introductory information that could get you started with NinjaScript.

If you would like someone to write the NinjaScript for you, you can hire a Certified NinjaScript Consultant who would be happy to do so. If that is the case, please write in to platformsupport[at]ninjatrader[dot]com with the text "Attention Jim" and the thread URL. I can then have a member of our Business Development team pass over a list of 3rd party consultants.

If you are simply posting with the hopes that another member of the forums will do the conversion for free, that is certainly fine and we appreciate any open source content that our users create.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or if I may be of further help for your interest in converting the Fractal Dimension Index indicator.

[johnnymustard]

Few other minor things...

First off thank you NT Jim.

I've familiarized myself with what you told me, it's a big help.

As far as the FDI goes, I was hoping someone will see the benefit of converting this to NT 8 and sharing it with the forum. If not, I'll end up paying someone. I have a 3rd party developer that I like.

And YES I'll take anything you have to help me learn to code my own work. I've tried the help guide link to MSFT tutorials but not making much progress. I need a more basic intro than they offer, sadly.

Specifically, I'd appreciate anything you can point me towards involving user defined times for a plot to end. I have an indicator I use all the time that plots a horizontal line from where I click on the chart until that user defined time. It remains on the chart until broken by a closing price. I'm trying to get this over to NT 8 as a project.

I had a couple of other questions too.

1) Please explain P&F chart settings for "base period type" and "base period value". If
I change the type, I can have a considerably different chart but I don't understand why.
P&F is based solely on price action. Box size and reversal amount should be all that
matters. Or so I thought. What's going on here?

2) I typically have charts for 6E, ES and CL open during the day. A week ago 6E started
covering the task bar on the bottom of the screen when I maximize it. Today CL
started doing that too. I don't know what I'm changing to cause this. No windows
outside NT have done this.

Thank you for the great new platform and the help, JM

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello johnnymustard,

Thanks for the additional questions.

As we are a small team, programming education is not something that we provide in the support department at NinjaTrader. We do have some educational material to help users get started with NinjaScript, however it is our expectation that users are able to write the correct syntax and troubleshoot the code that they write.

Many users report that a good way to start before fully learning C# is to go through the NinjaTrader 7 NinjaScript tutorials in the help documentation to get a fundamental grasp on .NET framework and how it is used in NinjaScript. From there I suggest looking at the Code Breaking changes for NinjaTrader 8 to understand the differences between NinjaTrader 7 and NinjaTrader 8.

You can view the tutorials for NinjaTrader 7 here: https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...?tutorials.htm

Although we do not currently provide NinjaScript tutorials like in NinjaTrader 7, we do provide in-depth help documentation on developing NinjaScripts for NinjaTrader 8. We also provide samples and a complete reference of the language.

You can find the educational resources here: http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpG..._resources.htm

Once you have a basic understanding of C#, I suggest following the documented Code Breaking changes between NinjaTrader 7 and NinjaTrader 8, and get used to NinjaScripts by porting an existing NinjaTrader 7 indicator or strategy.

You can find the Code Breaking changes here: http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpG...ng_changes.htm

Other users have wrote in about this information in our support forums here: http://ninjatrader.com/support/forum...d.php?p=488807

Also available are webinars on the NinjaScript editor. I will link them below.

Link to register for live webinar: http://ninjatrader.com/Webinar/NinjaScript-Editor-401

Recorded webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA0W4ECyVdc

1) Please explain P&F chart settings for "base period type" and "base period value". If
I change the type, I can have a considerably different chart but I don't understand why.
P&F is based solely on price action. Box size and reversal amount should be all that
matters. Or so I thought. What's going on here?

The Point and Figure charts are formed based off of the data from the base bar type and period. If you use different bars to build a Point and Figure Chart, you will see different results.

Our colleague Jason left a good explanation in the thread here: http://ninjatrader.com/support/forum...ad.php?t=35677

2) I typically have charts for 6E, ES and CL open during the day. A week ago 6E started
covering the task bar on the bottom of the screen when I maximize it. Today CL
started doing that too. I don't know what I'm changing to cause this. No windows
outside NT have done this.

This is currently a limitation within NinjaTrader 8, when windows are maximized on a secondary monitor. There is a feature request tracking interest to have this limitation lifted, and I have added a vote on your behalf. This feature request is tracked with the ID SFT-2294 and will be listed in the Release Notes page of the help guide when the feature gets implemented.

Release Notes: https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ease_notes.htm

If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask.