Being new to MetaTrader and not really having a clue about MQL4 I was wondering how an indicator can be used as an EA.

Taking PriceChannel_Stop_v6 as an example, if I place this into the 'Experts' folder can I then backtest it and optimise it?

If I then want it to do a conditional test from a separate indicator on the same chart, how is that done?

Any pointers in the right direction would be very welcome, thank you.

Attached Files

PriceChannel_Stop_v6.mq4 (7.3 KB, 31 views)

My dear Sadly,
An EA has nothing to do with an indicator : an EA trade, this means send some orders to open, close or manage positions.
An EA can have his own logic build in and in that case he doesn't need anything else to manage the positions.
An indicator doesn't trade : he just compute and/or visualize some information. An indic can also visualise his information regarding the past.
An EA is always in the present (even if can access to some infos of the past).
To trade using the information of an indicator, the EA can have the same logic build in, but there is much better : the EA can call the indic, so its' not needed to reproduce the same program.
I think the first step is to read the help file of the terminal, then,
do a "search" on this forum to find the lessons of CodersGuru, and, please, begin by the very first one !

Thanks for the adivce Michel - I had a horrible feeling you might say that. I'll carry on reading CodersGuru's web site tutorial - thankfully he wrote it in a easy to understand way.

There's a free e-course available that shows you how to code an EA from scratch.

Hopefully somebody will find it of interest.

Here's the link...

Free E-Course - Build Your Own Automatic Trading Robot

Hope that helps somebody!

Lux

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Interesting, thanks for the info Lux.