Condition builder: "GENERAL" / "BARS AGO" fields missing?

[The_Butcher]

Hi team!
Trying to find an answer to my problem on the forum, I was amazed to see what people can do with the condition builder. That's promising but for now I am stuck at square 1.
Indeed, I wanted to try my hand at the condition builder and just wanted to create a basic condition comparing the last SMA(50) value to the previous one to figure if it is going up or down.
I read the reference pages for that and created my SMA(50) indicator for a 100 ticks time frame as well as a 1 min time frame. The following issue is the same in both cases.
Then I went to create an alert using the condition builder and selected the SMA(50) on the left, "greater" in the middle and SMA(50) on the right.
Problem is: the GENERAL property including the "bars ago" field does not show and thus I can't seem to be able to compare the SMA(50) values across time.

As this is the most basic stuff anyone wants to do I figured this is a bug, on NT8's side, on the documentation or on mine...
Thanks for the help,
cheers

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello The_Butcher,

Can you please post a screenshot of the Conditions window when you can't configure the 'Bars ago' setting on the right. When I test this on my end, I am able to configure it. Could it be you don't have the SMA indicator selected on the right?

[s.kinra]

Hello The_Butcher,
You can use bars ago in condition builder for SMA, see attached snapshot for reference. Hope it helps!

[The_Butcher]

Hi guy and thanks for the feed back.

Yes, the SMA is selected properly on the right panel.

I also tried with all the other items in the list on the right and the "bars ago" field never appears.
I noticed something strange though: The layout of the list on your screenshot shows 3 sub-menus: "data series", "indicators" and "time".
I don't have the same layout and only have "columns"
Like we are not on the same version or not in the same window or something.
Also note that I am using a FXCM demo account. That might have something to do with the matter.

Thanks for the help.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Do you right click the chart, select Alerts and then click add in the Conditions section? Or do you open the Alerts-->Conditions window in a different way?

Unfortunately I can't see the screenshot. Can you please post it as an attachment.

[The_Butcher]

Hi Jason,
Ok, I understand:
I was accessing the condition builder via the market analyzer in which I created the column "SMA(50)" and then in the condition builder I was basically comparing a column to itself.
Accessing the Condition builder from a chart enables me to compare with the x bars before.

The thing though is that I want to run this comparison (and get this alert) when the conditions are met for any of the available currency pairs. If my understanding is correct, this is the point of the market analyzer to be able to screen for conditions in a list of instruments.
So I thought maybe I can create 2 columns, one with SMA(t) and one with SMA(t-1) and then compare them. But no can do.

I suppose there is a way to do that in the market analyzer, but I need help figuring it out.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

I don't see a way to configure such an alert in the Market Analyzer by right clicking in the Market Analyzer and selecting Alerts.

You could create a custom indicator that will generate an alert as per these conditions and then load it in the Market Analyzer using an Indicator column.

I'm not a programmer myself, so I won't be much help in this regard. If you need assistance, please create a new thread under "NinjaTrader 8 - Indicator Development".

[The_Butcher]

Thanks Jason,

Well, That's disappointing.
I used another platform (that I had to begrudgingly stop using for data feed availability reasons) where this screener could be made in literally 30 seconds... sigh.