A total change to the time interval selector

[Irukandji]

Hi, I use NT8 for stock trading.


Currently on NT8 there is only one drop-down menu for time intervals.


This proves to be a pain to use when it comes to number of candles that are displayed. As this number needs to be selected separately for days and minute charts.


So depending on whether days are selected or 5 minutes or 1 minutes or hourly... there are either not enough candles or sometimes too many candles.


For example, today I am journaling my trades. This means I must go back as far as July to see what trades I made. I change the chart to daily. I can see I made a trade. On my other chart, I select 5 minute, but the candles don't go back that far, so I can't see my trade. So now I will have to go into settings, change the number of candles, try to work out in my head how many there need to be... it's just messy and time consuming and annoying.


Other trading platforms have already found a solution for this problem - two time interval drop-down menus.


In the first, you select how far you want to look back, say, "1 year" in the second, you select the time interval, say "5 minute candles"


Boom - done! No more calculations, no more messing around.


So for my example today I would choose "1 year" and "daily" - I would be able to see which day my trade was done on.


The I would change to "6 months" and "1 minute candles"


Now I know my trade will be in there and know exactly where to look to find it.


This is way better than the current NT8 system.


Thanks.

[Irukandji]

And to add to that.... for example now, I just changed the 5 minute chart from 5 days to 200 days... and it's taking literally minutes to load!



Another feature to add would be, once an area of interest is identified on the daily chart (or any timeframe) I should be able to highlight that section and "zoom in" to it so no scrolling back is needed. Then change the time frame to 5 min or 1 min or whatever so I can quickly get to the info I need.



As I finish writing this... the 5 minute candles are still loading......


Painful.

[Irukandji]

Like just now............... the 5 minute candles finally finished loading... I manually scrolled backwards through time, back to July, found the candle which contained the quick trade.


I realized I couldn't see enough information on the 5 minute chart so needed to look at 1 minute intervals.


Change the drop-down to 1 minute and what happens? It sends me all the way back to the present day!!


So now I have to scroll back through months and months of 1 minute candles, just to find the damn trade again.


Beyond annoying.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Irukandji,

The 'Load data based on' with the 'Days to load', 'Bars to load', or 'Start date'/'End date' settings control the amount of data that loads on the chart.

This is in the Data Series window from right-clicking the chart.

You can increase the days to load or bars to load and save this with a Default template with each bar type to load this amount of data automatically when changing bar types.

Below is a public link to the help guide on saving data series templates.

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

I have submitted a feature request for the 'Load data based on' with the 'Days to load', 'Bars to load', or 'Start date'/'End date' drop-downs to be added to the chart toolbar.
Once I have a tracking ID for this request I will post in this thread for future reference.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Irukandji,

To simply and clarify, you would like to submit a second feature request to scroll a chart to a similar date and time when the data series is changed (such as the instrument, bar type, or interval) is this correct?

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Irukandji,

I have received tracking ID #SFT-819 for your request to add the 'Load data based on' and 'Days to load' / 'Bars to load' / 'Custom date range' selectors to the chart toolbar.

Please note it is up to the NinjaTrader Development to decide if or when a request will be implemented.

[Irukandji]

I usually look at 1 minute charts, I have "load data based on" days for 5 days.

I loaded 240 minute charts but that only showed 20 candles (including my after-hours)

So I changed it to look back at 400 days.

It took a looooooooooooooooooooooong time to load the data but eventually did.

Seemed ok.

Then I changed to weekly to look at the chart, then back to 1 min.

When I changed back to 240 mins... I was back to only 20 bars again!

I just need all bars at all times!

Why is this not available? It's standard on tradingview.com, a free online charting platform.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

This is occurring because each chart 'type' has preset settings that load automatically. This prevents you from having to define each setting in your data series when you switch types. One of the settings that is included in this default is the 'days to load'.

When you change to 'Weekly', this is a new type and loads it's default days to load. When you switch back to 'Minute', it loads the default settings for the minute type.

If you want to create new defaults, configure your data series as you desire then click on 'Preset' at the bottom right of the Data Series window > Save. Here is a link with more information:

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

[Irukandji]

Right... but this is the problem I mentioned before by not having "hours" as an option.

Because when I'm on 1 minute, I only need 5 days worth.

But when I switch to 4-hour (the only way to do so being to chose 240 MINUTES, I only get 20 candles which is obviously useless. So I have to change the days to load, just to see the 4-hour chart clearly.

And given how long it takes to load a years worth of 4-hour candles, this is highly impractical if I need to be switching between them during live trading hours and also changing ticker symbols frequently.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

Thanks for the clarification. Your feature request is already being tracked as #SFT-819.