Form/Window Indicator appears in all open workspaces

[flonkle]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with a custom indicator I built. The indicator creates its own Form/Window to display information in.

My problem is this: when I add my indicator to a chart in one workspace, the form/window it creates shows up not only in the workspace in which the indicator's home chart is located, but also in all other open workspaces in my NinjaTrader 7 client.

I know it is possible to get my indicator's form/window to only show up in the workspace in which it is applied, but I don't know how to do this. Can anyone tell me how to do this and/or point me to documentation showing me how to do this?

Thanks in advance for any help with this question.

P.S. (FWIW, when I open a ninjascript code file for editing, the same thing happens. My ninjascript code file appears in all open workspaces, and not just in the workspace in which I opened it for editing.)

[NinjaTrader_PatrickH]

Hello flonkle,

Thank you for your post.

Unfortunately, I am unaware of a way to set the form exclusively to a workspace. As this is unsupported it is expected that the form acts independently from the other windows in NinjaTrader.

[flonkle]

I'm surprised by this...

For one, I have a 3rd-party indicator that I bought that creates its own forms/windows. And the forms/windows for this indicator only show up in the workspace in which it is applied. How did this 3rd-party developer do this?

Secondly, the windows created by NinjaTrader itself remain contained in the workspaces in which they are created, for the most part. (Like I say, when I open an ninjascript code file for editing, this code file shows up in all open workspaces just like the form/window for my custom indicator does.) There must be some way to make this happen for the form/window in my indicator?

I know you say that this is "unsupported", but isn't there any documentation on this that I can look at? How in the heck are 3rd-party developers finding out how to get their forms/windows for their custom-built indicators to remain contained in the workspace in which they are applied?

There has to be some documentation about this somewhere that people are using in order to develop these form/window custom-built indicators for NinjaTrader. Please point me to it...

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

Creating a windows form even is unfortunately not supported with NinjaTrader 7. When something is not supported we try to guide the right direction but unfortunately there is no documentation or advanced guidance in this area I could provide. However we are looking into supporting for NinjaTrader 8 as we are wanting to increase support and documentation across the board so we're more flexible for developers.

As a last resort check out big mike trading forums if you havn't already, they have a large community of NinjaTrader programmers that have learned how to do stuff like this on their own without documentation and may be able to help you further.

-Brett

[flonkle]

Thanks... I guess. I hope that NT8 does have more support for this kind of stuff. Whenever I do run into problems with Ninjascript, I always seem to get the response from you guys that the problems I'm having are "unsupported"...

I was actually just perusing Ninjatrader Programming threads at Big Mike's and was about to inquire there for help, as you suggested.

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

No problem,

Basically as NinjaScript is just c# the same language NinjaTrader is programmed in the sky is the limit, you could build anything you wanted. We have to draw the line as to what is supported somewhere and that somewhere is what is in our help guide in our NinjaScript reference as linked below.

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

If its in the help guide its supported, otherwise its not but you should still ask on it as we may be able to give you some hints that will get you headed in the right direction which we will always try to do.

[flonkle]

Check out this thread I started (and finished :-) on Big Mike's site to see the tentative "solution" I came up with.

https://www.bigmiketrading.com/ninjatrader-programming/30909-form-window-indicator-appears-all-open-workspaces.html

This solution is not perfect, so if anyone else comes up with a more elegant one, feel free to post it here...

And if anyone else is frequently running into NinjaScript problems that are "unsupported", the above thread mentions a free code-profiling tool called "Microsoft FX Cop" that may help you to peek under the hood of NinjaTrader to help you get your problem solved. Microsoft FX Cop has an object browser that reveals many of the objects, methods, properties, etc. available to you "under the hood" of NT7.

(Post #9 of the above thread at bigmiketrading.com has instructions on how I installed "Microsoft FX Cop v1.36" under Windows 7 and a link to the download page from which you can download and install FX Cop. Posts #8 and #10 talk about how I used FX Cop to help me solve my NT7 Ninjascript Form/Window indicator problem described in this thread. )

[flonkle]

Just a quick addition to this thread that I've been meaning to make for awhile...

For those of you who are looking for free tools to use in order to "peek under the hood" of NT7, the free Visual Studio Express IDE's from Microsoft also have an object browser (much like the object browser in the free tool, Microsoft FX Cop, that I mentioned in my previous post) that will show you many of the objects, methods, properties, etc. available to you "under the hood" in NT7.

Open the files NinjaTrader.Core.dll and NinjaTrader.Custom.dll in one of these Visual Studio Express IDE's, and view the object browser. Much will be revealed.

Here is a link to the Visual Studio download overview page:

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

And here is a link to the download page for Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop (it's not included on the above page):

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34673

And even though it is not officially supported for Express versions of Visual Studio, when I try to debug an indicator or strategy in Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop, everything seems to work fine. (Search in NT7 Help for "Visual Studio Debugging" to see how to do this.)

Expanding the base classes/objects for the indicator/strategy you are debugging in Visual Studio Express via the above procedure can also give you lots of otherwise hidden information that you may find useful.

Professional developers may have access to more functionality using a paid-for version of Visual Studio, but the free Express versions of Visual Studio will still go a long way towards helping you to "peek under the hood" of NT7.