Documentation for development in VS with .Net

[braincell]

Hi,

I've been googling for an hour or two (or 4) and I cannot find the reference for using the NinjaTrader DLLs with my .Net application and I'm feeling rather silly for not finding it as everyone is saying NT is good with C# etc etc. All I'm finding is NinjaScript samples and references. Please, somebody, give me the basic link or put it up somewhere on the website where it's more obvious.

I've found a sample which lets me connect to my NT feed and I can see the live bid/ask prices but this is only using NinjaTrader.Client. I need more functionality or at least documentation on what the NinjaTrader.Client class can do.

Questions:
1- Where can I find samples or reference documentation for using other functionality for working with NinjaTrader (indicators as well as strategy development)?
2- Can I access historical data in any way from within Visual Studio ? Is there a class that does it, and if so, what is the name?
3- I would like to have my bars (if possible) give me the date and time of their creation. Is this possible? This is the kind of documentation I am looking for

All I want to do is access the data from my provider and have it listed within arrays/lists within Visual Studio (C#/ VB whatever), is that possible or will I have to use NinjaScript?

I have 5 years of coding experience (full time) and I'm not a newbie.

Begging for some info.
Thanks a lot.

[NinjaTrader_RyanM1]

Hi Braincell,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the NinjaTrader forums. We support NinjaScript documented in our help guide and reference samples. NinjaScript is used to create custom indicators and automated strategies:

1) http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/h..._resources.htm

2) This is not supported.

3) NinjaTrader build bars according to this help guide article:
http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/h..._are_built.htm. For a real time "time of creation" timestamp, you can capture in the bars FirstTickOfBar.

There is more you are capable of doing in C# and .net than the subset we provide support for (NinjaScript). You will be largely on your own for any area not explicitly documented, although can benefit from other community members for these areas.

[braincell]

Thank you for the swift reply.

Two more easy questions:

1- According to what you are saying, there is no class library (DLL) to import into VS which would give me complete access to NT but instead I am limited to what NinjaScript can do for me. Is this correct?

2- The difference between using Visual Studio and the default editor is only in IDE functionality, not in feature availability, is this true? In other words, there isn't anything more I could do by importing DLLs and using VS compared to what I can do using NinjaScript with the default editor, right?

I confused the issue because in most cases when programmers talk about using and compiling DLLs they talk about using class libriries to interface with the API so this is probably what threw me off course. Thanks again.

[braincell]

One more question:

3- Is there a way for me to code in Visual Basic and then compile the indicator somehow within VS or does all code have to be compiled within the NT Editor and thus has to be in C#?

[NinjaTrader_RyanM1]

Right, there's nothing to import in VS to gain access to NT's classes. We provide the framework, built with c#, for indicator and strategy creation. It's a standard C# compiler, so you can do things other than NinjaScript, but there is no support. For an idea of some neat unsupported things, take a look at this thread:

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=22435

Using VS is good for debugging, and offers a more convenient way to work with unsupported items like custom forms. If you only use NinjaScript to create custom indicators and strategies, functionality between NS editor and VS is similar.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/visual_studio_debugging.htm?zoom_highlightsub=visual%2Bstudio