For example, all annotations on a chart are lost when the window is closed. This is a basic feature of just about any chart program.
I honestly don't see how the NinjaTrader product management can neglect such mandatory features. It's as if the management doesn't even use any other trading software.
The extremely unstandard menu structure is another example. Create a new strategy by using Tools -> Strategies yet use a tool such as strategy analyzer by New -> Strategy Analyzer. It's completely counter-intuitive.
Another example is the modal dialogs. Anyone who's done any user interface programming knows that modal dialogs are only to be used for very serious dialogs requiring attention. This is very disruptive for my workspace. I've always got Ninjatrader windows on top of my desktop and I can't get rid of them. Try running Strategy Optimizer, you have this modal window for an hour. The data box is another example. Why do we need a data box? That info should be displayed on the chart.
Every time I compile my strategy I have to click OK on a dialog that says my strategy is compiled. How useful is that? I don't know of any programming environment which does this.
Seriously, it's as if the product development team hasn't used any other software. As if NinjaTrader has been developed in a cave, full of people who don't trade. Even QuoteTracker which is $7/month as is developed with Delphi many years ago, it has a better interface and better standard features. It's intuitive.
I find myself using QuoteTracker for my charting and using Ninjatrader exclusively for backtesting, and hopefully some day live trading.
It's really a shame that NinjaTrader suffers from these problems. The support staff is the best I've seen of any trading product. The support forums contain tons of useful information.
Which reminds me, finding things in the forums is extremely difficult because there search words must have more than 3 characters, and because when you mess up, say by searching "log", you have to wait 20 seconds to search again! This is so frustrating.
Sorry to rant but these issues are all unacceptable for a software at this price.
Hopefully these issues will be addressed with something other than "Thank you for the comments we'll forward these to the team." Instead of adding new features, make the ones you have usable.
Thanks
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