Strategy wants to draw Horizontal Price Line on Chart

[Hyper]

Hi. I poked around and can't readily see how to Draw a HorizontalLine
on the chart from my Unmanaged Strategy.

C# doesn't have Multiple Inheritance, so my Strategy class can't also
inherit from Indicator.

Thanks to earlier support; I've hooked the LeftMouseDown event, and that
delivers a correct Price from the Chart, as follows, but
how to draw the HorizontalLine at that Price?

private Brush myColor = Brushes.Red;
private DashStyleHelper myLineStyle = DashStyleHelper.Solid;
private int myLineThickness = 2;
private string myLineKey = "HLinePrice";

protected void LeftMouseDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
int Y = ChartingExtensions.ConvertToVerticalPixels(e.GetPo sition(ChartControl as IInputElement).Y,
ChartControl.PresentationSource);
double priceClicked = MyChartScale.GetValueByY(Y);
// price is correct
// try to draw a horizontal line on chart at priceClicked
//if this were an Indicator, which is is not, then I think I could draw like this, or similar
Draw.HorizontalLine(this, myLineKey, false, priceClicked, myColor, myLineStyle, myLineThickness); // pseudocode
}

Thanks in advance for your help !
hyperscalper

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello Hyper, thanks for writing in.

Do you get any errors in the log tab of the Control Center after running the script? If you do not get anything there, I recommend using the Print method to print every element of data that is used to draw the line for debugging. We also have an example here that shows how to draw when a line is clicked, this can be a good reference to use:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/forum/ninjatrader-8/indicator-development/96421-draw-dot-from-indicator-owner-problem#post792624

I look forward to hearing from you.

[Hyper]

Thanks, but this is a Compile problem; the Draw... line in the code shown
was marked with a //comment that says "pseudocode" (way off to the right side)
as I think it would be with an Indicator; but this is a Strategy subclass.
And it's being done in Visual Studio.

Perhaps I am missing a using... or a Strategy must use a different mechanism
to Draw on its Chart...

So, with a Strategy; what is the method of Draw-ing a Horizontal line, please?

hyperscalper

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello Hyper, thanks for your reply.

What is the compile error you are getting? Drawing methods work for unmanaged/managed strategies.

[Hyper]

I may be using the wrong fully qualified Draw.
NinjaTrader.NinjaScript.DrawingTools.Draw does not have a static
method HorizontalLine(...).

Either I have the wrong Draw version; or I am just misunderstanding
how it is supposed to work from a Strategy; not from an Indicator.
I guess it's the Object model which I may be misunderstanding.

Do you have a Strategy which draws a HorizontalLine on its
host Chart?

hyperscalper

[Hyper]

I think I have it wrong, of course
Draw.HorizontalLine from the documentation appears to be a "line factory"
so that HorizontalLine myLine = Draw.HorizontalLine(...);
from ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuide/nt8/horizontalline.htm

So now if I have a HorizontalLine object, then I have to figure out how
to show it on the chart.

[edit] Well, that's not true either; perhaps it's NT7 documentation or
I am using the wrong fully qualified class NinjaTrader.NinjaScript.DrawingTools.Draw
which does not have a field or method HorizontalLine, so far as I can see...?

Apologies for my lack of understanding here; but I'm sure you'll set me straight.

hyperscalper

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello Hyper, thanks for your reply.

I attached my test script here. This should be sufficient to get on the right track here. If you are still seeing the issue I will need a reduced test script of exactly how you have this set up in your strategy.

Kind regards.

[Hyper]

THANKS very much for that. I don't use the NinjaScript editor much; but it
was super easy to recreate a Strategy as you did, and magically, Draw.HorizontalLine
is defined correctly.

So I used the NinjaScript Editor nice function of converting things to a
Visual Studio project (I use Community 2017) and things were created
just fine, but then my error was revealed !!! No definition for
NinjaTrader.NinjaScript.DrawingTools.Draw.Horizont alLine !!

It appears that
a file in namespace NinjaTrader.NinjaScript.DrawingTools contained
a Partial Class definition for Draw inline with an unrelated class definition,
seems to have effectively over-ridden the Draw which was intended !

Once I remove that Development Environment class override, then I
am sure I'll see the correct definition for Draw.HorizontalLine.

I really learned something here; "the hard way" lol
MANY THANKS FOR THE HELP !
hyperscalper

[Hyper]

Hi. Although my questions may fall into the "this is not supported" category; I
feel confident you can help me.

So the issue with Draw.HorizontalLine is that in the NinjaScript Editor, the
definition is found in the Custom/DrawingTools/@Lines.cs file.

Now, what I was hoping for, in Visual Studio; was that the definition would
be found in one of the installed Assembly DLL's, so my first question is:

1) is Draw.HorizontalLine in one of the Assemblies?

If not, then how do I need to set things up so that the Visual Studio C#
environment as the same access to that @Lines.cs file
mentionned above? [edit] Just Add it to my Project? maybe

I'm sure there's a way to set things up; and point VS to these files,
if the definitions cannot be found in any NinjaTrader installed Assembly.

Sympathy for me, please; since I've spent 10 years using Eclipse with
Java development; and only a few months with VS 2017 ... ha ha

hyperscalper

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello Hyper, thanks for the follow up.

I just attempted to build the custom project located in Documents\NinjaTrader 8\bin\Custom and I am not able to compile the project, so we are looking into this problem now. I would recommend using the NinjaScript Editor for the time being. I typically do not use Visual Studio unless I'm making an Addon that requires XAML files and other resources. Strategies and Indicators are viable to work with through the NinjaScript editor, and you do not have to restart NinjaTrader every time you compile.

I will follow up once I have more information on the custom project.

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello Hyper, thanks for your patience.

I was able to get the custom project to compile in Visual Studio. The Vendor.dll will have these references, but this should only cause a warning and not a compile error. Could you please share the specific compile errors you are seeing from the custom project? (Note, the custom project can be found in Documents\NinjaTrader 8\bin\Custom, titled NinjaTrader.Custom.csproj)

I look forward to hearing from you.

[Hyper]

Hi. Thanks so much for looking into this. I realize that Visual Studio and
Assembly DLL implementations have their issues.

But I have at least 50 class in this Unmanaged Strategy; with everything
from soup to nuts inside ( Task queues, Threads, Winforms user interface,
and the list goes on and on... ) so it's pretty complex.

Because of that, I'm stuck in Visual Studio; but the NinjaScript Editor
environment is useful to understand some things.

I'll try to get into what you've suggested above; and I'm familiar with
Java Jars, sometimes overriding definitions; and maybe something
similar is going on with C#. For me, a C# namespace is more or less
the same as a Java Package, and Jar file ordering; where a Jar package
earlier in the classpath can override one later on in the classpath, etc.....

Intellisense just doesn't see a HorizontalLine field or method in the
NinjaTrader.NinjaScript.DrawingTools.Draw namespace; so I wonder
if something has "short circuited" the Draw definition path, so to speak...

Using Object Browser I couldn't find Draw.HorizontalLine either !...

hyperscalper

[Hyper]

Hi again. So I conclude that certain parts of the API apply to NinjaScript Editor based coding only.

I know that Visual Studio multi-class coding is really not supported; and that's OK.

With regard to Draw.HorizontalLine and other Drawing functions from a Strategy; I am starting
to think I'll just need to pull in selected code from NinjaScript environment into my VS project; in
order to make this work.

What would you advise? Is there, or is there going to be an Assembly DLL that supports the
Draw.HorizontalLine and lots of other drawing functions outside of NinjaScript?

Am I just "on my own" on this? It just came as a surprise to me that I ran into this little roadblock.

hyperscalper

[NinjaTrader_Jesse]

Hello Hyper,

Outside of NinjaScript and in just C# there would be no way to use NinjaScript objects or functions, you would need to be working within a context that you can use those namespaces or classes. If you need to use something from the custom project in an external solution you would generally need to include all necessary code in your export to support that. The visual studio solution is generally only intended for more advanced cases where you want to custom code something rather than use the existing frameworks or that you needed a specific visual studio feature that the NS editor does not support. We generally suggest to build projects from within the NinjaTrader.Custom project so you have access to the normal NinjaScript documented items. NinjaTrader would handle all the compiling in that case and visual studio would not be used to build and would just be used as an editor.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance.