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• April 2, 2013 | Howtos

DAY2: Preset Comments

Introduction

Welcome to Blog No 2 in this miniseries of 10 daily blogs in which I will exploit MT4GUIs functionalities.

I hope you find it both interesting as well as valuable!

Sincerely

Thommy Tikka

DAY2: Objective

Have you had trouble to follow up the results of your different trading strategies!?
Don’t worry, today I will show you how you can add preset comments as well as manual ones to your trades.

DAY2: Functions covered

MT4GUI

MT4 menu functions (Adding Options menu with submenu for enable/disable preset comment listbox and textfield on chart)

MT4GUI listbox (6 preset list items + a manual one)

MT4GUI textfield (to be able to manually type a trade comment)

MT4GUI button (Execute trade button on MT4 chart)

Look and feel (Size, color, positioning etc of GUI objects and menu)

MT4 (MQL4)

EA property inputs (set X/Y position of GUI and preset comments)

Alert (pop-up box confirming user actions)

CODEBASE:

// mt4gui-PresetComments.mq4
// Created by Thommy Tikka (thommy_tikka@hotmail.com)
// Version 0.1, 20130402

// Include library file with common functions for mt4gui
#include

// Declare global variables
int hwnd = 0;
int executeTradeBtn;
int menuOptions,menuSubComments;
int presetCommentList, presetCommentTextfield;

//Default position of buttons (adjustable in the experts properties/inputs)
extern int    GUIXPosition   = 10,
              GUIYPosition   = 60;

// Default 6 x PresetComments (adjustable in the experts properties/inputs)
extern string PresetComment1 = "ManualStrategy1",
              PresetComment2 = "ManualStrategy2",
              PresetComment3 = "ManualStrategy3",
              PresetComment4 = "AutotradeStrategy1",
              PresetComment5 = "AutotradeStrategy2",
              PresetComment6 = "AutotradeStrategy3",
              ManualComment  = "";

// MT4 function called during the module initialization
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
int init()
  {
	hwnd = WindowHandle(Symbol(),Period());
	guiRemoveAll(hwnd);

	// Add execute trade button to chart function call
   CreateExecuteTradeBtn();

   // Add options menu to MT4 function call
   CreateOptionsMenu();

   // Add interface with listbox and text field to chart function call
   BuildInterface();

   return(0);
  }

// MT4 function called during deinitialization of the module
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
int deinit()
  {
   // Very important to cleanup and remove all gui items from chart
   if (hwnd>0) guiRemoveAll(hwnd);
   guiCleanup(hwnd);

   return(0);
  }

// MT4 function called on every MT4 tick
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
int start()
  {
   // Call function ManageEvents on every MT4 tick
   ManageEvents();

   //Check if something new has been typed into the manual comment text field and replace the list of comments if it is
   if (guiGetText(hwnd,presetCommentTextfield)!=ManualComment)
   {
   ManualComment = guiGetText(hwnd,presetCommentTextfield);

   //Removes the list to be able to rebuilt it with new manual comment (function BuildInterface())
   guiRemoveListAll(hwnd,presetCommentList);
   BuildInterface();
   }
  }

// MT4GUI functions to create Menu
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
void CreateOptionsMenu()
{
   // Add "Options" menu to MT4 menu
	menuOptions = guiAddMenu(hwnd,"Options",0,0);

	// Add sub-menu PresetComments with enable/disable
	menuSubComments = guiAddMenu(hwnd,"PresetComments",menuOptions,1);

	// Set Options menu background color to Blue
	guiSetMenuBgColor(hwnd,menuOptions,Blue);

   // Set sub-menu Comments background color to Aqua and text to Black
	guiSetMenuBgColor(hwnd,menuSubComments,Aqua);
	guiSetMenuTextColor(hwnd,menuSubComments,Black);

	// Set Comment menu item to enable
	guiCheckMenu(hwnd,menuSubComments,true);
}

// MT4GUI functions to capture Menu & Button Events
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
void ManageEvents()
{
	// If executeTradeBtn is clicked execute function ExecuteTrade()
	if (guiIsClicked(hwnd,executeTradeBtn)) ExecuteTrade();

   // If menuitem SubComments is clicked check status, remove/create Screenshot button
   if (guiIsMenuClicked(hwnd,menuSubComments))
   {
      if (!guiIsMenuChecked(hwnd,menuSubComments))
      {
      guiRemove(hwnd,presetCommentList);
      guiRemove(hwnd,presetCommentTextfield);
      }
      else
      {
      presetCommentList=0;
      presetCommentTextfield=0;
      BuildInterface();
      }
   }
}

// MT4GUI functions to capture build Interface with textfield and list box
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
void BuildInterface()
{
	// Textfield Object
   if (presetCommentTextfield==0)
   {
   //Add a comment text field for manual input using user adjustable X/Y-position (size fixed to 150x20)
	presetCommentTextfield = guiAdd(hwnd,"text",GUIXPosition,GUIYPosition+30,150,20,ManualComment);

	//Set background and text color for comment text field
	guiSetBgColor(hwnd,presetCommentTextfield,Yellow);guiSetTextColor(hwnd,presetCommentTextfield,Black);
	}

	// List box	with all the PresetComments listed. Position based on user adjustable X/Y-position, size fixed.
	if (presetCommentList==0) presetCommentList = guiAdd(hwnd,"list",GUIXPosition,GUIYPosition,150,300,"PresetComments");
    guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment1);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment2);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment3);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment4);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment5);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,PresetComment6);
	guiAddListItem(hwnd,presetCommentList,ManualComment);

	//Sets the first (0) list item to default
	guiSetListSel(hwnd,presetCommentList,0);
}

// MT4GUI functions to create Button
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
void CreateExecuteTradeBtn()
{
	// Position and size of the button ,x ,y ,a ,b (x, y = position from top left corner. a, b = size of button)
	executeTradeBtn = guiAdd(hwnd,"button",GUIXPosition+160,GUIYPosition,70,50,"");

	// Execute trade button Border color
	guiSetBorderColor(hwnd,executeTradeBtn,White);

	// Execute trade button Background color
	guiSetBgColor(hwnd,executeTradeBtn, Blue);

	// Execute trade button Text color
	guiSetTextColor(hwnd,executeTradeBtn,White);

	// Add text to execute trade button
	guiSetText(hwnd,executeTradeBtn,"Exec",25,"Arial Bold");
}

// MT4 function to execute a trade (only simulation, replace with your own execution code)
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
void ExecuteTrade()
{
   Alert ("This could have executed a trade with comment: ", IndexToComment());
}

// Function to convert presetCommentList index number to corresponding Comment
//+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
string IndexToComment()
{
   //Gets the selected list item index (0-6) and converts it to corresponding preset comment
   switch (guiGetListSel (hwnd, presetCommentList))
   {
      case 0:
            return(PresetComment1);
            break;
      case 1:
            return(PresetComment2);
            break;
      case 2:
            return(PresetComment3);
            break;
      case 3:
            return(PresetComment4);
            break;
      case 4:
            return(PresetComment5);
            break;
      case 5:
            return(PresetComment6);
            break;
      case 6:
            return(ManualComment);
            break;
   }
}

VIDEOCLIP: