Global Crosshairs / Crosshairs Always On Indicator

Post by **arts** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:14 am

The other week someone asked in the forum if it was possible to have crosshairs always on. There is not an obvious way to do this, however with Empty4 there is always a workaround. I have also been meaning to put together a global crosshairs indicator and I've combined the two in the attached indicator. I know people have complained about the lack of global crosshairs in Empty4 for years (although its obviously not the only complaint!!) and with the recent upgrades its now possible.

The only input here which requires any explanation is "Crosshairs_Always_On". If true it will 'force' crosshairs on the chart. If you click without moving the mouse they will disappear (which is quite important to be able to open the indicators window to adjust or remove an indi), but the instant you move the mouse they reappear. However this has adverse consequences with regard to creating new objects and dragging existing objects around the chart, which may or may not be an issue. If "Crosshairs_Always_On" is false, the Left mouse button effectively becomes an on/off switch for crosshairs. This allows objects to be created and moved around the chart while using the indicator.

Global crosshairs replicates the time and price point shown by the crosshair/cursor on the controlling chart across all other charts. Obviously, if another chart is for a different currency pair, the horizontal price line may not be visible, however it is still useful to have the vertical line for comparing time points between pairs. Place the indicator on all tiled charts and as you move the cursor around, whichever chart you hover over will control the crosshairs on the others. There are some minor adverse consequences re objects but nothing insurmountable.

The indicator uses some winuser32 functions to 'force' the crosshairs to be on, so DLLs need to be allowed. The global crosshairs code is achieved almost entirely using new Empty4 functions.

I hope this may be of some use to a few others and that it might also spark a bit of interest in the new functionality in Empty4, some of which adds a whole new dimension.

Post by **milanese** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:23 am

Thank you for posting this

, I am sure it will be usefull for a lot of users!

Cheers

Tommaso

Post by **dclayw** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:02 pm

arts » Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:14 pm wrote:The other week someone asked in the forum if it was possible to have crosshairs always on.

Yep, that was me. Thanks so much for posting this indi and thanks for PMing me about it. Works perfectly and exactly what I was looking for.

prasadFx · Post by **prasadFx** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 2:14 pm

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks million times

Post by **SteveHopwood** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 8:55 pm

prasadFx » Sun Mar 29, 2015 2:14 pm wrote:This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks million times

Well done for spotting this and bringing it back to light. Clearly been doing some productive digging at shf, I see.

Post by **traderduke** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:09 am

arts
Thanks a lot, its the one of the functions that I liked about tradestation.
Thanks again
Ray

Post by **simplex** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:47 pm

Absolutely great - thanks a lot for posting!

Post by **arts** » Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:51 am

Hi Andy,

Its been a while since I've thought about this indicator. I dusted it off and had another look at it.

In fact its not a bug. if you have the global_crosshairs input set to true, the indi deliberately turns off autoscroll on all other charts.

The indi uses the ChartNavigate() function to align the other charts with the time point you are looking at on the controlling chart. That could be some way to the left. If Autoscroll was allowed to be on, each of those other charts would jump to the end every time it received a fresh tick - kind of defeating the purpose of the indi...

John

Raj4x · Post by **Raj4x** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:13 pm

Awesome.

Can not believe (well, actually I do believe) that MetaCrap has not made that a default setting...

Will try on latest Empty4 build and report back should this no longer work.

Cheers and thanks

fiox · Post by **fiox** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:40 am

Simply magnificent. Thank you arts and guys for reporting to light this indi