Adding a second plot to a new panel in an indicator

Desktop SDK - Indicators
1

I’ve written a new indicator, and I’d like to add a second plot to it that would be displayed in its own panel at the bottom of the chart, similar to how the built in RSI indicator displays.

I read an old forum post about it, but couldn’t quite make sense of it. In particular, I don’t see how to specify what panel the plot appears in, or how to set the range or thresholds. If it makes a difference, what I’m plotting will return values of 1, 0, or -1. These are buy/do nothing/sell signals, and I want to turn them into a plot so they’re accessible from Strategy Builder.

After I get it set up, it looks like within OnBarUpdate() I just assign values for each plot in the order of their creation with Values[0][0], Values[1][0] etc. But how should I create it?

Old forum post

2

A single indicator instance can only plot to a single panel. That panel can either be the chart panel or a separate panel. You can control this in your indicator code by using IsOverlay.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/isoverlay.htm

You can’t send different plots from the same indicator instance to different panels. That is not supported as far as I know.

In your case, if all you’re trying to plot is the one signal for buy/sell/nothing, then you can define a single plot and just assign it values of 1, 0, -1 as you suggested. You would only use Values[0][0] for assignments. Values[0] refers to the first plot (index 0), Values[1] refers to the second plot (index 1), so and so forth. Since you only have one plot, you will only use Values[0].

In OnBarUpdate:

if (my calculation is bullish)
{
Values[0][0] = 1;
}
else if (my calculation is bearish )
{
Values[0][0] = -1;
}
else
{
Values[0][0] = 0;
}

Hope this helps.

3

I think you can do something like this using an add on. I have the main indicator and an additional indicator in the addons. This allows me to sync some values in the main indicator to a different indicator. If you look at the screenshot you can see the main chart and a bottom histogram. You’ll have to add both when selecting indicators.
trust-me-bro/AddOns/TrustMeBro/Indicators/TrendScoreIndicator.cs at main · WaleeTheRobot/trust-me-bro · GitHub

4

Thanks for your reply. I ended up making this a hidden plot with a transparent brush, but with the signals still accessible to other scripts/strategy builder.