Convert Indicator To Strategy

[Widgetman]

Hi,
I was wondering if someone could help me wrap my head around how to access private variables in a indicator to trigger buy and sells in a strategy. Attached is a indicator I want to use to trigger my entrys. Inside the indicator are the variables HighestHi and LowestLow which are private. This indicator also plots lines for fib points so I would also like access to those as well. I have looked at the sampleboolseries example as well as a couple others, but I just can't seem to grasp the OO concept this language uses. I tried building a strategy in the wizard and I can add the indicator, but can not select the variables to set a logical trigger to on what I want. Any thoughts or other examples actually converting an indicator to a strategy would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[grahamwillsher]

Widgetman,

I have written indicators and strategies in the past and there was no way to use the indicators in the strategy, you had to copy and rewrite them for use in the strategy. E.g. the indicators were not available for generic use within the strategy.

This was a bit of a pain, as if you made a change to the indicator, you had to remember what you had changed and make the same change in the strategy.

I think that there are some notes on this in the 6.5 help.

Hope this is of some use.

Regards,

Graham.

[NinjaTrader_Austin]

Widgetman, there is a reference sample available for exposing private DataSeries that are not plots, which can help get you started with using an indicator in a strategy.

[Edward Kunafi]

Hello Widgetman,

You can only access it if it is made public. Though not necessarily plotted.
A good example is DoubleMA from NT script sharing. It has two private series with corresponding public series, but they are both not plotted.

But for debugging speed, you should consider plotting it so you actually see on a chart when signal is given. If your primary indicator plots on panel 1, it would be difficult to code signal level that is price level sized so it does not affect the panel1 scaling. So you could use unplotted public data series then use a wrapper indicator that actually plot them on another panel.

Hope it helps.

Regards,
EdwardK.

[Widgetman]

Thanks Guys

Hi,
Thanks for all the info and help. I ended up making a strategy out of the indicator as suggested by someone here earlier. This seemed to be the least path of resistance for me. Maybe some day I can grasp this concept of OO inheritance, and all the cool stuff it does. In Easy Language all I would have to do would be to comment out the plot lines in an indicator to make it a strategy. I guess I have a lot to learn about C#
Thanks

[Edward Kunafi]

Hello Widgetman,

Using indicator as the real strategy base is the way to go, because it plots! One need to see what is going on. Strategy does not plot, if it does not do certain thing as one expected, the only thing one can do is print, which is going to be difficult to relate where things happen or does not happen.

The actual strategy file would then do stuff that indicator cannot do, things related trade, such as entry, target, stop order and management, trade management, time and money management.

Cheers.

EdwardK.