TimeSpan property value is not persisted in workspace

[Brillo]

I've added TimeSpan properties to my strategy to allow users to control when to start, pause, resume and finish trading. The values are interpreted by the strategy as a delta from the session start or session close. I was previously using a number of minutes but that is difficult to work with as a user of the script.

The TimeSpan properties work nicely in the property sheet. But there's one problem: The values are not persisted in the workspace... or they're not restored from it when restarting NinjaTrader.

The steps to reproduce:
1. Import the attached strategy, MACrossOver, that has a TimeSpan property defined called StartMinutesTS ( Name = "Session Start" )
2. Create a new workspace.
3. Open a chart and add the MACrossOver strategy to it.
4. Look at the properties in the Property Sheet. Note the "Session Start" is displayed as 08:50:00. This is the default setting set in OnStateChange() State == State.SetDefaults.
5. Close NinjaTrader and choose Save when prompted.
6. Restart NinjaTrader
7. Edit the MACrossOver strategy to view the "Session Start" property. The value is 00:00:00.

The Store / Restore bug is only when restarting NinjaTrader. It does not occur if you change steps 5 and 6 to
5. Close the workspace and choose Save when prompted
6. Open the workspace again

The same store/restore issue happens with the Strategy Analyzer as well.
I did not try indicators so I don't know if it's also an issue in the Market Analyzer.

It's really a nice feature to have the TimeSpan property working. I hope this can be fixed soon.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Brillo,

This would likely take serializing the input.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/xmlignoreattribute.htm

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/user_definable_color_inputs.htm

https://ninjatrader.com/support/foru...eter#post79414

[Brillo]

Thank you Chelsea. I got it to work well.

 [XmlIgnore, NinjaScriptProperty]
[Display(Name = "Session Start", Description = "time span from beginning of session to begin trading", Order = 29, GroupName = "07. Trade Time")]
public TimeSpan StartMinutesTS
{ get; set; }

[Browsable(false)]
public string StartMinutesTSSerialize
{
get { return StartMinutesTS.ToString(); }
set { StartMinutesTS = TimeSpan.Parse(value); }
}

This implementation is better than the one suggested in the help guide:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/NT%20HelpGuide%20English.html?user_definable_color_inputs.htm

The guide is suggesting to make the property type bound to the UI a String and then converts it to a TimeSpan when serializing. Although it works it allows the user to type in anything they want and they might type in something that is not convertible into a TimeSpan object.

The impl that I posted here binds the TimeSpan itself to the UI and consequently the UI enforces the nn:nn:nn format.

Thanks for your help and guidance.