Ctrl+Left Arrow and Ctrl+Right Arrow

[MikeInMA]

I noticed the following in beta 23, and it seemed odd. I'll be surprised if this is correct operation.

For this example I created a 5-min chart of the RTH session of ES. Then I kept marking the left-most visible bar with a vertical line and then hitting Ctrl+Left Arrow once. Basically I wanted to show how much the chart shifted with each press of Ctrl+Left Arrow. Here's the initial unshifted chart with one candle marked:



Here's what the chart looked like after 6 shifts:



You can see that some shifts encompassed more bars while some encompassed fewer. Two more shifts yielded this:



Notice that those last two shifts were really narrow and then really wide.

No pictures for the following, but after doing those eight shifts with Ctrl+Left Arrow I started hitting Ctrl+Right Arrow, figuring each press of Ctrl+Right Arrow should undo one press of Ctrl+Left Arrow. However, I had to hit Ctrl+Right Arrow twelve times to get back to an unshifted chart, even though I'd only hit Ctrl+Left Arrow eight times.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello MikeInMA,

When I hit Ctrl + the left or right arrow key, nothing is shifted on my end. If I only hit the arrow keys it will shift one bar at a time as expected. Please see the link below under 'How to change the horizontal scale and range of a chart'.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/navigating_a_chart.htm

• Horizontal chart scroll bar at bottom of chart
• Left mouse click and hold on chart canvas and drag left or right
• CTRL key + Left mouse click and hold in the x-axis (time axis) and drag left or right
• Mouse scroll wheel scrolls the chart back and forth along the x-axis 3 bars at a time
• CTRL key + mouse scroll wheel scrolls the chart back and forth 9 bars at a time
• Left arrow key scrolls the chart back one bar at a time
• Right arrow key scrolls the chart forward one bar at a time
• Page Up scrolls the chart back one page at a time
• Page Down scrolls the chart forward one page at a time
• Home key scrolls the chart to the very beginning
• End key scrolls the chart to the very end

I am not sure why the chart shifts on your end using Ctrl + arrow keys. Could this be related to some setting for the Ctrl key on your end?

[MikeInMA]

If you look again at the screen shots I posted you'll see that the horizontal scale of the chart is unchanged, so that's not what I'm doing nor is it what I'm trying to do. I just happened to notice that Ctrl + the left or right arrow key shifted my chart by more than one bar. (The best analogy would be to word processing where a plain arrow key shifts the cursor by one letter while Ctrl + an arrow key shifts the cursor by a full word.)

If something else were defining those keys, what would the definition be? Convert Ctrl + an arrow key to a random number of regular arrow key presses? That's what it would have to be, since sometimes my chart shifts more and sometimes it shifts less, and I've got to say I think that's fairly improbable. So I'd appreciate it if you would ask the development folks a quick question about whether or not NinjaTrader has special handling of those keys.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

I included that section of the help guide because it lists all methods to scroll the chart. It does not list instructions to change the scale.

NinjaTrader does not have special handling regarding the Ctrl key.

The Ctrl key + the mouse scroll wheel will scroll the chart back and forth 9 bars at a time. Could it be the arrow keys somehow have the same functionality as a scroll wheel on your PC?

[MikeInMA]

If the arrow keys had the same function as the scroll wheel then 1) I would be able to scroll web pages (like this one) with the arrow keys the same way I do with the scroll wheel, and I can't; and 2) the scrolling in NinjaTrader would be evenly spaced like it would be if using the scroll wheel – 3 bars at a time or 9 bars at a time – and it was not.

Also, if something were getting between the key press of Ctrl + left or right arrow and NinjaTrader, that should be the case with all applications. So, for example, I should see weird operation of word processing or email editing. But I don't. So the simplest explanation really is that NinjaTrader is getting these keystrokes and handling them in some odd way.

One thought I have is that this is related to the fact that I edited hot keys. Here are screen shots of my Hot Keys Manager for areas where I made changes. How about if you make the same edits and see if that has any effect?

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

I setup the Hot Key Manager exactly the same, however Ctrl + left/right arrow did not do anything. I restarted NinjaTrader and tried again, but it had still no effect.

I suggest to avoid scrolling the chart using Ctrl and the left and right arrow keys and use any of the methods in post #2.