Paintbars drawn on intraday and historical charts are used for easier visual analysis of existing indicators. It gives you the ability to define rules to color candles and shapes as well as horizontal bands based on formulas involving indicators.

 

 

Creating/Editing Paintbars:

Open the Paintbar Editor by selecting Chart Paintbar Editor from the Charts menu on the portfolio screen:

 

 

The Paintbars window will contain a list of paintbars that you already have.  Here you can edit an existing paintbar by highlighting (selecting) it (the rules for the paintbar will appear in the Paintbar Settings Expression window).

 

 

A paintbar consists of Rules (Expressions) that define comparisons of values and the resulting actions. Click on the Add Rule button to add a new rule. As the rule is added the expression is automatically created for you and can be seen in the Expression box.  All the rules take the form of the familiar If Then Else statements.  To the left of each rule are the colors/actions selected for the rule.

 

You can have multiple rules for each paintbar. Continue to add more rules as needed, clicking on the Save Rule button.  To delete a rule click the Delete Rule button. To make and exact copy of a paintbar click on the Clone Rule button.  This makes it easier to edit a new rule which may be similar to this one. When  all done, Save the Paintbar.

 

Creating rules can be accomplished in with either the Simple or Complex Expression Editor and you can switch between the two.  Although there is more control and options available with the Complex method, the Simple method, as the name implies, makes it easy to implement the most commonly used rules without having to know the complexities of programming.

 

Simple Expression:

With this method, items are selected from predefined drop down lists, check box options and logically placed entry text boxes.

 

Select the first item in the expression from the drop down list. The list contains available Top and Bottom indicators.  Above the indicators are Bar values that you can select to compare to (Open, High, Low and Close).  Paintbar refers to a color comparison of the current bar.  Bar Time refers to a comparison of the open time of the current bar in the form of hh:mm such as 11:45. Note that these refer to display times taking into account the offset set in Timing Preferences.  Day values, unlike specific Bar values are used to refer to the price values of the entire day - Open, High, Low and Close.

 

Depending on the item selected, it may be further necessary to define it. For example when selecting an indicator, a with parameters box is necessary to define the indicator parameters if you have more than one of the same indicator with different values on a chart, such as 14,1 for a CCI indicator.  You can specify the parameters of the indicators but you do not have to.  If you do not, then the first instance of the indicator on the chart will be used in  the computation. If parameter is specified, then only the (first) indicator with exact matching parameters will be used. For some selections there may also be a . (dot) followed by a sub-indicator drop down selection such as the specific line on an indicator (if the indicator has more than one), such as Main or Signal line for a CCI indicator.

 

Next, select the comparator such as = (equal), >= (greater than or equal), <> (not equal), etc.

 

The third item is the value being compared to. You can select it from the drop down list or manually enter a value to compare to such as a number, time, color (Paintbar comparison).  The items from the drop down list are the same as the first item selected above and follow the same explanation.

 

The final item is the action to be performed based on the result of the selected comparison. Select the Action from the drop down list. If a color type is selected, click on the color box to select one. Follow with the Else action and/or the and stop check box on the appropriate line, as needed to complete the rule.

 

Click on Save Rule to record the rule. Continue to add more rules in the same fashion until the paintbar is completed and then Save the Paintbar.

 

Complex Expression:

With this method, you have more options and possibilities but the rules are not automatically created - you must enter each rule fully and completely following the same format (and indicator names) as would be created by the Simple Expression method. Notice how all the drop down lists disappear and are replaced by a manual entry text box when you switch to this mode:

 

 

In addition to all that is available using the Simple method, the following may be used:

 

Standard math expressions:  +, -, *, /, ^, MOD and  DIV operators.

Logical operators:  AND, OR, NOT so that you can use two or more expressions in one rule.

 

Functions: LOG(X), MAX(X,Y), MIN(X,Y), ABS(X), TRUNC(X) and ROUND(X).

MAX and MIN use 2 variables separated by commas. MAX will return the greater of the two values and MIN, the lesser of the two values.

ABS returns the absolute (unsigned) value of an expression/variable.

TRUNC returns the whole number (truncated decimals) of a value. ROUND returns the rounded value.

 

Examples:

if MAX(ABS(Bar Close-EMA),ABS(Bar Close-SMA))>0.02*Bar Close set color to red

It is similar to using:

if ABS(Bar Close-EMA)>0.02*Bar Close OR ABS(Bar Close-SMA)>0.02*Bar Close set color to red

and translates to: If the price diverges more than 2% from either EMA or SMA, the color is set to red.

 

If Bar Close is 15.75 then TRUNC(Bar Close) is 15.00 and ROUND(Bar Close) is 16.00.

 

Variables can be of the following format:

Indicator(params).SubInd[Offset]

 

The (params) are needed to identify which specific indicator is being referenced.  It may be omitted if there is only one such indicator or if you want to refer to the first such indicator on the chart that the paintbar will be applied to.  For example if the chart has a CCI(6,1) and a CCI(14,1) indicator, CCI (without params) refers to the first CCI indicator on the chart and is the same as specifying CCI (6,1).  To reference the second CCI indicator, you must use the params (14,1).

 

The [Offset] is optional and refers to how many bars (or days) back and is in the form of X[Offset] where X indicates how far back and can refer to an indicator value such as CCI(6,1)[2], a bar value such as Bar Open or a day value such as Day High.

 

The .SubInd qualifier is optional except in cases where it is explicitly needed (such as Pivot Points, CCI or Bollinger Bands).

 

For example:

MACD(12,26).Signal[1] means the signal line of the MACD indicator with parameters 12,26 one bar back.  Pivot Points.S1[1] means the S1 pivot line one day back.

 

The operator precedence is the standard one, but in case of doubt, parenthesize the expressions.

 

Click on Save Rule to record the rule. Continue to add more rules in the same fashion until the paintbar is completed and then Save the Paintbar.

 

Paintbar Alerts:

In addtion to the Paintbar display on the chart, you can also set to trigger an alert when the rule is met.  This is done by clicking on the Alert Properties button in the editor next to the paintbar action.   The button will show the status of whether an alert is entered and active or not (On or Off).  You would access the Alert parameters on an already existing alert the same way to view or modify it:

Check the Alert Enabled box to enable (activate) the alert.

 

In the Alert Message text box, type any combination of text and fill-in parameters that you would like to be shown in the Pop Up Alert Window and the message to be sent via Email (if selected to trigger).  You can select the fill-in parameters to add by right clicking anywhere in the text box:

 

When the alert triggers, the fill-in parameters will be replaced with the approriate text or value.  Click on the Preview button to see a sample of what the generated alert message will look like.

 

Alert trigger actions:

Timeout After: When an alert triggers and the row is highlighted, it will remain so until acknowleged by turning off the alert (right click menu on the symbol).  You can enter a timeout value (in seconds) for this to be done automatically. The highlighted row (if selected) will start to fade and turn itself off, and be ready for the next alert to be triggered.

Duplicate Alert Threshold:   Select the minimum time (in minutes) between triggers for the same alert for a chart so as not to trigger an alert again on the same paintbar rule.  Set this to 0 to always alert you on duplicates.  Set this to a high number, such as 999, to never alert on duplicates.

Trigger Once Per Candle: If this option is checked it will prevent the same alert to trigger on the same  candle (bar) more than once even if the criteria has been met. If it is unchecked, the alert will trigger every time the rule criteria is met for the candle.  The Duplicate Alert Threshold option works across multiple candle  (bars) whereas this option is specific to the current one only.

 

Show Indication of Alert on the Chart:  This will place an ! (exclamation point) on the chart where the alert triggered. Hover the mouse on it to display a tooltip of the paintbar that activated the alert.  Double click on it to reset (turn off) the alert.

Flash Task Bar Icon:   Flashes the QuoteTracker icon in the Windows task bar.

Pop Up Alert Window:  Pops up an alert window with the text entered in the Alert Message textbox.

Highlight Stock Row With Color:  Highlights the row of the symbol in the portfolio that triggered the alert.

 

Email Alert:   Select the Email Template you want to use to send an email with the text entered in the Alert Message textbox or select ---No Email Alert--- from the available templates drop down list.

Audio Alert:   Select a Standard Windows audio sound to be used (make sure the sound you select is associated with a sound in the Windows Control Panel Sound applet) or a Custom wav file you want to use.  Click  on the --- button to browse for a wav file.  Click the Test button to hear the sound.

 

Applying Paintbars to the Charts:

Paintbars are placed on the charts the same way other indicators are - by using the Select Indicators screen from the right click menu on a chart. Paintbar - Top is available for selection in the upper indicators list and Paintbar - Bottom is available for selection in the lower indicators list. Once the paintbar indicator is selected, click on the Edit button to the right of it to define and setup the paintbar display:

 

 

 

 

 

Example:

For the purpose of this example, a simple paint bar is defined based on the CCI indicator with the following (self explanatory) rules:

 

if CCI.Main<-100 set color to Red and stop

if CCI.Main<=0 set color to Lime and stop

if CCI.Main<100 set color to Silver and stop

if CCI.Main>=100 set color to Red

 

The same paintbar was then added to five locations on the same chart resulting in:

 

The paintbars are numbered 1 through 5 on the chart as below:

 

Top Indicators - Show On:

1 Shape Above Candle.

2 Candles.

3 Band - Bottom.

 

Bottom Indicators - Show On:

4  Full Background (linked with CCI indicator)

5  Band - Zero Line

 

Notes: