Line studies
Hi folks,
Today we will talk about the line studies usage in MetaTrader.
The line studies are lines and geometrical figures you can draw them on the chart. The line studies enable you studying the chart, therefore, analyzing the market for the purpose of effective strategies.
Inserting a line study:
You can insert a line study two ways; 1- by choosing the line study you want to insert from the Insert menu (Figure 1) or by clicking the line study button you want to insert from the line studies toolbar (Figure 2).
Note: In the line studies toolbar (Figure 2) you will not find all the line studies available in MetaTrader, MetaTrader saves the toolbar place by showing a few of the available item in a toolbar. But you can add/remove one or more of the available line studies to the toolbar by taking these steps:
1- Right click on the line studies toolbar and you will get a menu like figure 3.
2- Choose Customize command from the menu and that will pop up the line studies toolbar customize window as shown in figure 4.
3- To add new item to the toolbar select it from the right list and click the Insert -> button.
4- To remove an item from the toolbar select it from the right list and click <-Remove button.
5- To set the order of the button in the toolbar select the item and use the Up and Down buttons.
6- To reset the toolbar items to the default items shown in figure 2 click the reset button.
Choosing the line study from the menu or clicking the line study on the toolbar will convert the mouse cursor to a different shape according to the line study, and you are ready now to draw the line study you have be chosen.
You draw the line study by clicking the left mouse on the point you want to start the drawing the line on and dragging the mouse while you are holding the left button of the mouse then release the mouse on the point you want to end the drawing in.
Setting the properties of a line study:
Drawing a line study will set it you the default properties of the line study (Except the position and the size which you set while you drawing the line).
To change the properties of the line study you can double click the line study you want to select it then right click the mouse on it (the line study) and a context menu will appear (Figure 5) from it choose the line study properties… , a window based on the kind of the line will appear (Figure 6).
From this window you can change the properties of the line study, like the Name of the line, the Description of the line, the Style of the line, the start Time and end Time of the line, the start Value and end Value of the line and the timeframe you want to draw the line in.
Note: You can access the properties of the line study by accessing the Object List window (from the Charts->Objects menu, from Object List command in the context menu of the chart or by hitting CTRL+B) figure 7. From this window you can double click the line study you want to edit or click Edit button to bring the line study properties window.
Deleting a line study:
You can delete a line study you already have drawn by clicking it to select it and hit Delete keyboard key, you can access the same command from the context menu show in figure 5 and select Delete command, you can delete a line study too from the Object List window (Figure 7).
To delete more than one line study you have to select them by clicking the first line study you want to delete and hold the SHIFT key while you are double clicking the other line studies you want to select then hit the DELETE keyboard key or choose Delete All Selected command from the context menu in figure 5.
Note: In MQL4, it's very easy to write a program to delete all the line studies drawn on the chart in the main window and the other window.
You can download this script from here: