Changing Indicator Z-Order using Up/Down results in Alert associations changes

[brucerobinson]

This is likely one for PatrickG as hopefully recall will help reduce the need for lengthy explanation.

I needed to change the Z-Order of indicator to 'make the right one on top'. This can be difficult using Shift-Scroll (to select) where the one you want to bring to the fore is underneath.
The Up/Down in Configured Indicators pane makes Z-Order listing order.
However, doing so does not 'change/keep' the association through to Alerts.
By which I mean that if you have an Alert Condition configured, and move the ranking of the Indicator in the Indicators Configured List, in Alerts the Condition stays attached to the 'location' of the Indicator the Condition was attached to, not the Indicator. The Indicator that was 'populating' that location has now changed due to the re-order, so the Condition as was is now broken, now attached to whatever Indicator now populates that place in the Listing.

That's as best I can understand and describe what seems to be.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

What version of NinjaTrader 8 are you using? Please provide the entire version number. This can be found under Help -> About (Example: 8.0.X.X)

If I understand correctly, you're reporting that the alert remembers the original position of the indicator in the list and does not remember the indicator itself? If so, I cannot reproduce this issue following these steps:

• Add an SMA 14 period (first, top) and SMA 200 period (second, bottom) indicator to an ES 12-18 chart
  • This should result in two plots which are currently separated by several points
• Create an alert:
  • SMA 200 period (second, bottom) is less numeric value = some value in between the SMA 14 and SMA 200
  • Rearm type = timer = 5
• This alert should fire immediately and every 5 seconds
• After you're certain this is working, Change the order of indicators
• Right-click on the chart > Select SMA 200 > Move up > OK

Video: https://www.screencast.com/t/w2JXdkDH

What steps should I be taking to recreate what you're describing?

[brucerobinson]

Hello Patrick and thanks.
Version 16.1. I was eagerly awaiting 16.2 for the Trade Performance Filters breakage fix so I don't have to reset every day and downloaded it, and then saw 16.2 was to be superceded shortly thereafter. An End of Day job now.

Thanks for the video and speedy response. I wish I could do stuff that fast, unless you've speeded up the video.

In essence what you're doing seems to be the same. Wishful thinking on my part that you would experience the same straight off the bat.

I'll need to investigate further and confirm what appeared to me to be the case, and if so document it. This is where it gets time-consuming.

An observation though - you point out at the start of your video that the red is on top of the green - Z-Order, matching the List. Then you move up - the Z-order doesn't change, red still on top on the chart after the move?

Which indicates (sic) the Z-order hasn't changed having moved it up in the list. Which is a 'different problem' you are having to the one I believe I am, albeit you haven't noticed you appear to have the problem.

And if your Z-Order didn't change on the chart, why not?

And if your Z-Order didn't in fact change, then you wouldn't get the same problem as me.

Which is where my heart starts to sink....

Or am I missing something in what I see in your video?

Kind regards,

[brucerobinson]

Hello Patrick,
Please see attached snips.
1 shows a 'good' set of alerts on DAX.
I have 3 Data Series, 3 Sessions - Full, Overnight and Day.
I have an OHL and a PriorOHL on each.
I have a pair of alerts for approaching the Session range high or low for Current and Prior.
On Prior, I additionally have Alerts for returning into the range from outside.
Snip 1 is the Full Session data series range high being approached from below.
The Condition has OHLFull which is the Current OHL indicator.
Snip 2 is same with Current OHL indicator on Overnight Session data series
3&4 Etc
Snip 5 shows the Dow Alerts, broken
The Alerts are the same, i.e.

I have 3 Data Series, 3 Sessions - Full, Overnight and Day.

I have an OHL and a PriorOHL on each.

I have a pair of alerts for approaching the Session range high....blah blah
Notice that the Indicator shows OHLONight where it should be OHLFull
Snip6 has OHLDay indicator for ONight High from Below Alert
Snip7 Day Alert has OHLFull Indicator
Etc etc
Snip 8 Nasdaq OHLFull High alert has ONight OHL indicator.

The Z-Order up down may or not be the culprit, but last change is usually a good place to start.

What I know -
I set up all the Alerts per the DAX good configuration Snip1 etc.
They were all working as expected.

I had a 'problem', in that the Full Session Prior & Current OHL needs to be on top in Z-Order so I can see the ETH range extremes clearly (by colour-coding) during the day session in all circumstances. They weren't due to not realising during building the set up.

So I set about changing the Z-Order by moving the Prior & CurrentOHL to lower than the respective Overnight and Day Session counterparts, so the Full OHLs were 'on top'.
This was successful.

I subsequently noticed the incorrect alerts firing.

I investigated the Alerts and saw what I attach.

The Z-Order change, and the breaking of the Alert associations to the respective indicators may or may not be related.

What is not in dispute is that all the Alerts were correct per the DAX example i.e. the correct Indicator attached to the Condition, the OHLFull High from Below Condition had the OHLFull Indicator as the Object. Across 18 Instruments.

The 'breaking' i.e. how they have changed is the same in each i.e. the Full Alert has the incorrect ONight Indicator in both the Dow and the Nasdaq, as does the OHL Overnight High Alert have the Day Indicator.
Etc etc

Which makes me suspicious, suspect it is the re-ordering, But not necessarily.

I haven't checked all instruments' alerts as yet.

I can't think of having done anything else that could be relevant.
But I can't think of anything that could or should be able to result in such an outcome.

Kind regards
Bruce

PS: for heaven's sake I try to post and it tells me max no of attachments is 5.
a) why let me attach 8?
b) why not say that when I attach them?
c) why not prevent me from attaching more than the limit?
d) failing all else, why not state that in the pop-up attachment window?
As you might expect from above, my frustration looms large

[brucerobinson]

It says 'write something (optional)', I don't and get an error message 'text required'. Perhaps there is a different understanding of optional on Planet Ninja

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

To answer your original questions to me in post #3, I do observe the same issue of z-order not visually changing. This and one other quirk have been reported to the Development Team as QA-4134.

With that said, I do not believe those are contributing to what you're reporting as the root issue here (alerts failing to work properly after changing z-order via the indicator list). Can you verify whether you can or cannot replicate the issue following my video example exactly?

Your 'steps' to reproduce are quite complicated and require the use of many custom settings which are unique to your installation of NinjaTrader. It will be easier to take this conversation of the forums and into email so I can gather your template and workspace files for exact replication. Please contact us at PlatformSupport[AT]NinjaTrader[DOT]com so we can work on your very specific issue. Make sure to include a link to this forum thread and '1997828 ATTN PatrickG' in the message.

Additionally, thanks for the forum - I'll forward this to the appropriate team.

[brucerobinson]

Hello Patrick and thanks and I will, but not just now.
I see Alertgate2 in the making.

To be clear re: post#3
When you re-order your SMAs in the list, your Z-Order does NOT change, which it SHOULD. So you give me a test to do that isn't working, which I notice.

When I re-order my indicators (OHL & Prior OHL) Z-Order DOES change, as is supposed to be the case.

Never ending.

I'll replicate your video.

The perhaps only positive is that it seems that whatever is going on seems may be being reproduced consistently across independent mirror examples. I haven't looked in depth but I suspect where it should be an OHLFull Indicator but has changed to an OHLDay indicator, the exact same change has taken place on the other instruments' alerts. i.e. Full always replaced by Day, if ONight is replaced by Day in one, same consistently

Kind regards,
Bruce

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

Bruce, I wanted to follow up specifically regarding the Z-order and how it is or is not affected by using the up/down buttons.

The first time you add an indicator to configured list and press OK, it gets a Z-order assigned based on the load order of indicators in the configured list. After that, the Z-order which was assigned (or which you changed it to via mouse wheel) sticks with it, even if you change its load order in the configured indicators list. If a different behavior was desired, we would track that as a feature request.

[brucerobinson]

Hello Patrick and thanks for the explanation.
I think that fits with what I ended up doing in the other thread that I created following this one.
Seeing as we're on it & for completeness - a clarification:

"The first time you add an indicator to configured list and press OK" and "After that, the Z-order which was assigned (or which you changed it to via mouse wheel) sticks with it"
- when you add an indicator it loads at the bottom of the list (foremost Z). WRT when you hit OK is it correct that what you're saying the way it works is that if you want to specify the Zorder position you would Add the indicator, move it to the desired position in the list with up down arrows and THEN press OK to 'assign' that Z order based on its position in the list at the time of pressing OK?

So I believe what you are saying is:
Add indicator - by default bottom of list, Z-Order not yet assigned until press OK.
If move indicator up/down in list, THEN click OK, sets Z-order determined by position in list.
If click OK BEFORE moving in list, Z Order set at Default position in list, which is at bottom, foremost Z.

So where the indicator is in the list when you press OK, determines what it's fixed Z-Order is, and once fixed is not changed by moving it in the list, Z Order is 'sticky'.

If so, then that is what I deduced from my own efforts. Moving indicators in the list do not change Z-Order per se (as you found I pointed out in your video, and as I said there is no documentation on the UpDown arrows)

Separating out the issues (WRT broken Alerts), what I found 'worked' re: fixing the Z-Order where I wanted it, was to add a new indicator to 'force' it to have the highest Z-Order by adding at the bottom of the list, clicking OK to set its order, and then moving it up the list (but moving up in list after clicking OK wasn't doing anything, which is what I deduced from moving the pre-existing Indicator beforehand, which is why I added a new replacement indicator to 'force' the Z-Order issue, make it on top)
.
If my understanding of what you're saying is correct, 'OK' sets the Z-Order, once and once only, determined by the position of the indicator in the list at the time you click OK. So it would seem the purpose of the Up/Down arrows is to put it where you want its Z-Order in the list BEFORE clicking OK? Once you've done this and clicked OK, moving up/down doesn't do anything? Correct?

So the sole reason for me adding this 'extra' copy of the indicator was to be able to make its Z-Order foremost, because moving it up down' in the list did not do so.

Having done this, I then deleted the pre-existing now duplicated indicator with lower Z score from my list.

What I believe I have found is that doing so breaks all the associations for Alert Conditions to all the indicators below in the list, per my other thread on that subject.

So the title of this thread isn't in fact correct - it is not changing Z-Order that breaks the associations, it is removing an indicator that does so.

I appreciate you coming back to me on this, as we have to look to the positive.

But it makes sorry reading.

Now Brett needs to figure out why removing an indicator from the list breaks all Condition associations for all below in the list, which I understand he is investigating. I can reasonably see that if I remove an indicator from the list, it will remove the Alert Condition associations for that indicator, that makes sense. Then, when I add my new replacement Indicator with desired higher order Z, I will have to recreate those Alerts. But not break everything else below it in the list.

The word is fragile, as I've said before I do the most innocuous of things and bang, carnage, certainly wrt Alerts it seems.

Kind regards,
Bruce