Help making Buttons and other input fields on chart

[VirtualFM]

Hello guys!

Sorry for not hanging around so much on the last couple years, been busy making my own stuff (some would say I am just wasting time, because sometimes I have those "brilliant ideas" and a while later I browse through the forum and understand someone had that idea some months/years ago!) (for example, a couple weeks ago i had this "brilliant" idea where i would close obviously loosing positions (after a bunch of rules going the bad way) as long as there was a positive profit for the day, so that psychologically there was no loss on that day but still keep closing crappy trades. So I would have to organize opened positions in arrays, something I never dealt with, and order them, and close those that would be in range, etc... That took almost a whole week of thinking, studying and experimenting, and then yesterday i found this, which has pretty similar ideas and would have helped me a lot
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 57#p137367)

Anyway...

I wanted to put some buttons on the chart in order to quickly change some parameters, instead of open the EA properties and look for the input. And I realize that we can do this now, making buttons and some other fields, but everything I saw looked overcomplicated or just didn't work. For example, I followed this simple tutorial

http://automatedtradingsoftware.co.uk/h ... n-in-mql4/

and couldn't see anything happening anywhere!

So, for those in the know, do you know some examples, or could you point me to some where I could see an actual example of a working button, or a radio button, or a pull-down menu, if possible, or a field where we could input numbers? Or have you stumble upon some ea/indicator on this site that has such things?

Thank you so much.

[Lowphat]

Code: Select all

//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
#include <ChartObjects\ChartObjectPanel.mqh>
#property strict
#property indicator_chart_window
CChartObjectButton ButtonA;
int a = 1;
void OnInit() {CreateButtonA(0);}
void OnDeinit(const int reason) { }
int OnCalculate(const int rates_total,
                const int prev_calculated,
                const datetime &time[],
                const double &open[],
                const double &high[],
                const double &low[],
                const double &close[],
                const long& tick_volume[],
                const long& volume[],
                const int& spread[])
  {
//----
   return(rates_total);
  }
bool CreateButtonA(const long chart_ID=0)
{ 
     ResetLastError();
     if(!ButtonA.Create(0,"ButtonA",0,10,25,75,15))
     {
         //--- display the error message in Experts journal
         Print(__FUNCTION__+", Error Code = ",GetLastError());
         return(false);
     }
     ButtonA.Description("Boobs");
     ButtonA.FontSize(10);
     ButtonA.Corner(CORNER_LEFT_LOWER);
     ButtonA.Anchor(ANCHOR_CENTER);
     ButtonA.State(false);
     return true;
} 
void OnChartEvent(const int id,
                    const long &lparam,
                    const double &dparam,
                    const string &sparam)
    {

     if(id==CHARTEVENT_OBJECT_CLICK)
       {  
           if (sparam=="ButtonA") 
           {
              if(ButtonA.State() == true)
              {
               a++;
                Comment ("TEST\n"+IntegerToString(a));
              }

              ChartRedraw();
           }
       }
    }
    

[milanese]

Hello guys!

Sorry for not hanging around so much on the last couple years, been busy making my own stuff (some would say I am just wasting time, because sometimes I have those "brilliant ideas" and a while later I browse through the forum and understand someone had that idea some months/years ago!) (for example, a couple weeks ago i had this "brilliant" idea where i would close obviously loosing positions (after a bunch of rules going the bad way) as long as there was a positive profit for the day, so that psychologically there was no loss on that day but still keep closing crappy trades. So I would have to organize opened positions in arrays, something I never dealt with, and order them, and close those that would be in range, etc... That took almost a whole week of thinking, studying and experimenting, and then yesterday i found this, which has pretty similar ideas and would have helped me a lot
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 57#p137367)

Anyway...

I wanted to put some buttons on the chart in order to quickly change some parameters, instead of open the EA properties and look for the input. And I realize that we can do this now, making buttons and some other fields, but everything I saw looked overcomplicated or just didn't work. For example, I followed this simple tutorial

http://automatedtradingsoftware.co.uk/h ... n-in-mql4/

and couldn't see anything happening anywhere!

So, for those in the know, do you know some examples, or could you point me to some where I could see an actual example of a working button, or a radio button, or a pull-down menu, if possible, or a field where we could input numbers? Or have you stumble upon some ea/indicator on this site that has such things?

Thank you so much.

you can too look into the HiddenPendingEA code it has some button functions...

Cheers

Tommaso

[VirtualFM]

Hi Lowphat, thanks a lot for the code. It works, but even if it's really nice to stare at "Boobs" for a long time, I find this completely overcomplicated and counterintuitive. I went through "ChartObjectPanel.mqh" and "ChartObjectsTxtControls.mqh" and, boy, there is a ton of stuff I don't get over there!

Thank you as well, Milanese. Your example looks like you made "your own buttons" in a time when there were no button functionality available. And they look much more understandable than the official mumbo-jumbo. I will study them and try to make them clickable in a way that we see they are in a clicked state (which doesn't seem to be the case now, as you just want them to perform actions as soon as clicked).

Oh well, but not this weekend anymore.

Cheers!