Enabling a Strategy

[whitmark]

After a couple of attempts to add a strategy to a chart and seeing no trades, I found I had to select the "Enabled" setting to activate the strategy...doh! Will this extra step always be necessary to enable a strategy or can this be configured to be auto-enabled?

Also, in the upper right of the chart I am seeing "(D)SampleMACrossOverTest(10,25)". Looks like the "(D)" signifies disabled.

Thanks,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

After a couple of attempts to add a strategy to a chart and seeing no trades, I found I had to select the "Enabled" setting to activate the strategy...doh! Will this extra step always be necessary to enable a strategy or can this be configured to be auto-enabled?

Also, in the upper right of the chart I am seeing "(D)SampleMACrossOverTest(10,25)". Looks like the "(D)" signifies disabled.

Thanks,

Whitmark

I believe there is no way to auto enable and correct, the (D) means disabled.

[whitmark]

Enabled Strategy Workflow Concerns

A strategy's "Enabled" property does more than just enable the strategy, it also locks-in parameter settings to address continued operations during connection disruptions. However, it creates a couple of "speed bumps" in the workflow when changing strategy parameter values. For example,

NT6.5 (3 Steps):
- Open Strategy Dialog
- Change Parameter
- Click Okay

NT7 (6 Steps):
- Open Strategy Dialog
- Enabled = false
- Click Apply
- Change Parameter
- Enabled = true
- Click Okay

I would add there is a certain amount of scrolling up and down the parameter list in NT7 to accommodate this that adds even more time. Shouldn't the presumption be that if the strategy dialog is opened that changes are desired and when the Apply or OK button is clicked that those changes will be saved? Why go through the extra step of requiring the user to unlock/lock the strategy parameters?

Whitmark

[zweistein]

you could write a back ground thread that adds an OKandEnable button to the strategy dialog and automate the enable click.
.net is very flexible and well suited for this approach
regards

[whitmark]

Thanks, Andreas, for your two-cents but would hate to enable a poor UI/workflow for such a common task with an unsupported workaround. I suspect this is an unintended consequence that is worthy of rethinking.

[hemlock]

I have set Enabled = true; in the initialize method of a strategy. This seems to work.

[whitmark]

I have set Enabled = true; in the initialize method of a strategy. This seems to work.

Thanks hemlock. Enabled = true in the strategy code will cause the strategy to be enabled when first applied to the chart to address my original post. However, it will prevent the parameters from being updated until Enabled is set to false and does not diminish the extra steps now required under NT7 to change parameters.

Whitmark

[jdfagan]

Agree with Whitmark's comments here. This business of enabled strategy set to true not allowing for params to be altered is a major productivity drag for users of a strategy who are doing research/discovery. Please reconsider not graying out params just because a strategy is active. Its driving me crazy.

[zweistein]

You can use your own code for updating the parameters of a strategy while running.

I have done so and it works fine:

http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24586

andreas

www.zweisteintrading.eu

[jdfagan]

Appreciate your workaround suggestion. However, I'd rather not implement a hack workaround whether that be my own code or purchasing your 100 Euro add-on just to re-enable basic property editing functionality behavior as one would expect which existed in 6.5. To me this implementation has a design smell to it. I'd rather not have Ninja try to enforce its workflow that one must disable a strategy just to tweak a param. I'd rather that be independent (or at least allow for a global override in general options to turn on/off this behavior of forcing us to disable strats before tweaking params).

NT 7 has for sure moved forward many steps but there are a few mis-steps backwards IMO, and this is one of them. Another was missing of chart templates but they quickly corrected this in subsequent beta versions. My hope is they do something similar regarding this issue.

Cheers,

JD

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

With the introduction of strategy persistence one of the things required was being able to not recreate new instances of strategies. In 6.5, when you pressed Apply you essentially got a new instance. In 7, pressing Apply/OK does not create a new instance to any strategies already set as Enabled. Only new instances of strategies that went to a Disabled can be done, as such, since persisted strategies really aren't created as a new instance, changing parameters cannot be done to an Enabled strategy.

[r2kTrader]

Ditto! And also Ditto regarding Whitmark's initial issue!!

Agree with Whitmark's comments here. This business of enabled strategy set to true not allowing for params to be altered is a major productivity drag for users of a strategy who are doing research/discovery. Please reconsider not graying out params just because a strategy is active. Its driving me crazy.

[Mike12345]

Why????????

Hi everyone

Just I have my strategy completed and this stragegy has a key to activated or deactivated by one click of the mouse on the chart, but I found out that every time I shut down NT and turn it on again, I have go into every chart to enable the strategy again, to do that I have to go almost 5 click on each chart x 10 chart. eveyday. I know that NT did that to protect from unexpected entry when you turn the platform back but we can do something easier or have an option to save as a defult enabled.

Thanks
Mike

[MXASJ]

Guys FWIW a high-end platform I'm testing doesn't allow you to edit most parameters a strategy that is enabled anywhere globally... something you might not be aware of locally. Personally I think that is a good thing in terms of risk, even though NT7 does not yet cater to a central risk system for multiple users out of the box.

Call me lame but that "Enable" tick box is something I welcome.

My 2 Phennig.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Thanks for the input MXASJ.

Mike, to batch activate strategies, please go to the Strategies tab and select all persisted strategies, select them all and right click on 'Enable' to enable them all.