Chart Control

Hi folks,

Today we will talk about How to Control MetaTrader Chart.

Note: Chart is the graphical representation of time (Vertical) and Price (Horizontal) of a currency, where the history data can be loaded and drawn on and as well the new quotations.

Changing the chart type:

There are three charts type you can choose to work with one of them in MetaTrader:

Bar Chart:
View the chart as sequence of bars (Figure 1).
You can access the same option by clicking the Bar Chart button in MetaTrader toolbar, going to Charts menu and choose Bar Chart or by hitting ALT+1 hotkey.

Figure 1 - Bar chart

Candlestick:
View the chart as a sequence of Japanese candlesticks (Figure 2).
You can access the same option by clicking the Candlestick button in MetaTrader toolbar, going to Charts menu and choose Candlesticks or by hitting ALT+2 hotkey.

Figure 2 - Candlesticks

Line Chart:
View the chart as a broken line, connecting bars' closing prices (Figure 3).
You can access the same option by clicking the Line Chart button in MetaTrader toolbar, going to Charts menu and choose Line Chart or by hitting ALT+3 hotkey.

Figure 3 - Line chart

Changing the period:

One of numerous features of MetaTrader is the support of various timeframes (data periods). This variety of timeframes enables you to carry out analysis by using technical indicators and line studies.

There are nine timeframes available in MetaTrader: M1, M15, M30, H1, H4, D1, W1, and MN

M stands for minute.
H stands for hour.
D1 means 1 day.
MN means 1 month.

You can choose the timeframe you want to work with by clicking the timeframe button in the Periodicity toolbar (Figure 4), choosing Periodicity menu from Charts menu then choose the timeframe (Figure 5) or right click the chart to open the context menu and choose the Periodicity menu then choose the timeframe (Figure 6).

Figure 4 - Periodicity toolbar

Figure 5 - Periodicity menu

Figure 6 - Periodicity context menu

Scaling:

You can increase and decrease the number of the Chart Bars displayed in the window to the scale you want.
To do that you can click the Zoom In/Zoom buttons on the toolbar (Figure 7), hitting + and - keyboard keys, choosing Zoom In/Zoom from the Chart menu or you can choose Zoom In/Zoom Out from the context menu.

Figure 7 - Zoom In/Zoom buttons

Note: The maximum and minimum values of the scales limit can be changed from the Chart Properties Window (Common tab) from the Scale Fix, Fixed maximum and Fixed minimum options (Figure 8).

Figure 8 - Common tab

Scrolling the chart:

You can scroll the chart (left to right and right to left) to view the necessary data on the screen. Scrolling the chart can be done with your left and right arrow keys of the keyboard, by pointing the mouse with left click and drag the chart to left and right or you can go directly to the position one the chart you want by using the quick navigation line.

Note: If you have a scroll wheel in your mouse you can use it to scroll the chart left and right. Scrolling the wheel down scrolls the chart Right and up scrolls the chart Left.

Quick navigation line:

Quick navigation line used to fast access to some of the chart tasks. With the aid of this line window you can do the following:

Go to an exact place in the chart.
Change the timeframe of the current chart.
Open new chart with a new currency pair and new period.

In our article we are concerned about scrolling the chart to exact place, to do that you have to open the Quick navigation window by placing the mouse on the left corner of the horizontal scale banner of the chart (Figure 9) and double clicking there or simply by hitting ENTER key.

Figure 9 - Quick navigation line

A small window like the one you see in figure 9 will appear where you can type there one of these commands and click ENTER to shift the chart to a specified position:

[exact time (hours:minutes)]
Example: 08:30

[exact date]
Example: 2005.10.19

[exact time and date]
Example: 2005.10.19 08:30

We will know more about the Quick navigation window in another article.