In this article, we will explore the Mini Chart indicator, which provides traders with a convenient tool to create a sub-window within the main chart.
- Mini Chart indicator Overview
- How to Install Mini Chart indicator?
- Using the Mini Chart indicator
- Drawing style and colours
- Minimum, maximum, and grid
- Size and position
- Indicators
Mini Chart indicator Overview
The Mini Chart indicator creates a chart in a draggable, resizable sub-window inside a main MT4 chart. It lets you see the price action on other instruments and/or timeframes without needing to switch between different MT4 charts.
The Mini Chart has a wide variety of features:
- Timeframes such as M4 and H3 in addition to standard timeframes such as M1 or H1
- Tick bars (e.g. bars made up of 10 ticks each) and seconds bars (e.g. 20-second bars)
- Range, Renko, Kagi and Point & Figure charts
- Data-transformations such as Heikin Ashi and Three Line Break
Although you cannot add MT4 indicators to a Mini Chart, it does provide its own options for showing popular indicator calculations such as moving averages and Bollinger bands.
How to Install Mini Chart indicator?
To download and install the Pro Trading Tools please follow these steps:
1. Login to FXTM profile > Hub > Pro Trading Tools
2. Download FX Blue or Trading Central for your Platform (Meta Trader 4 or Meta Trader 5)
3. Run the downloaded FX Blue and Trading Central files and apply them to your chosen MetaTrader Platform when prompted.
4. Relaunch the MetaTrader platform. You’ll find your FX Blue* and Trading Central tools in the ‘Navigator panel under ‘Indicators’ and/or ‘Expert Advisors’.
Note: FX Blue tools will appear in MetaTrader labeled as FXTM or Figaro app suite.
Using the Mini Chart indicator
Adding the indicator to a chart
You add the Mini Chart indicator to a chart in the usual MT4 way, either by dragging it from the Navigator onto a chart, or by double-clicking on it in the Navigator. You can also use standard MT4 features such as adding the indicator to your list of Favorites, or assigning a Hotkey to it.
You need to turn on the “Allow DLL imports” setting in the “Common” tab of the indicator’s options:
Choosing the symbol
You set the symbol to display using the Symbol parameter in the Inputs tab. The symbol must be present in the MT4 market watch, and you should include any suffix which your account has for symbol names, e.g. EURUSD+
To display more than one symbol, you simply add multiple copies of the indicator to the chart.
You can also leave the symbol set to (current). This will then display the same symbol as the main MT4 chart, and will change if the main chart changes.
Inverting prices
You can invert prices by turning on the option on the Inputs tab. For example, this will convert USDJPY into JPYUSD.
Chart timeframe/type
You choose the chart timeframe, or a type such as Kagi, using the option on the Inputs tab.
If you leave the timeframe set to (current) then the Mini Chart will use the same timeframe as the main MT4 chart, and will change if the main chart changes.
The Mini Chart offers a range of different timeframes and chart types:
- Standard timeframes such as M5 and H1
- Extra timeframes such as M4 and H6
- Sub-minute, seconds-based time periods such as S10 and S30
- Tick-lines, i.e. lines showing each change in the ask and bid price
- Tick charts, i.e. candles which are not time-based and are instead made up of the same number of ticks
- Price-based charts such as Renko and Kagi
Data transformations
The Mini Chart indicator provides popular transformations of the bar data:
- Heikin Ashi
- Three Line Break
- 2-bar average (i.e. each bar is the average of itself and the previous bar)
- 3-bar average
(Transformations are different to chart types such as Kagi or Renko. With a chart type such as Kagi, there is a price-based rule for when/how to draw each new bar, i.e. a rule which is not simply based on time such as H1 or S30. A transformation such as Heikin Ashi takes bar data such as H1 and applies averaging to it. A Heikin Ashi chart has an underlying timeframe, such as H1. A Kagi or Renko chart does not.)
Drawing style and colours
You can use the Inputs tab to change the style and colours. The Mini Chart offers a range of drawing styles:
- Candles
- Bars (i.e. a central high-low bar with open and close horizontal markers)
- A line showing each close price
- Close points (i.e. dots at each close price, without a line)
- Lines showing the high and low (but not the close)
- A filled channel showing the high and low, with a line showing the close inside the channel
- No drawing – the bars themselves are not drawn, and only indicators are displayed.
Please note: the drawing style is fixed for tick-lines, Kagi, and P&F charts. Changing the style setting has no effect for these types of chart.
Maximum and minimum
By default the Mini Chart will automatically select a high and low range to draw based on the bars which are visible (as MT4 itself does). You can use the Inputs tab to tell the Mini Chart to include any indicator values in the high-low. Otherwise, as in MT4, indicator values may be invisible off the top or bottom end of the chart.
You can also set a fixed maximum and/or minimum price for the chart using the Inputs tab.
Horizontal grid
By default the Mini Chart will automatically draw horizontal grid lines. It will choose the nearest power of 10 (e.g. 0.01, 0.001) which does not create an excessive number of visible lines.
You can set a specific grid size using the Inputs tab, setting the parameter to a price amount such as 0.0020, or you can turn off the grid entirely by setting the parameter to zero.
Vertical grid
By default the Mini Chart will automatically draw vertical grid lines based on the chart timeframe/type which you select. You can change the vertical grid lines, or turn them off, using the Inputs tab.
Please note: for chart types such as Renko and Kagi which are based on price movement rather than time, the vertical grid lines will not be evenly spaced.
Size and position
You can use the Inputs tab to set the indicator’s initial position within the MT4 chart. You can define a position in terms of pixels (replacing the default values of -1) from a specific corner of the chart.
The Mini Chart is both draggable and resizable, in the usual way by pressing and holding the mouse over the sub-window’s title bar or border. By default the indicator will then choose a corner of the chart to “dock” itself to. For example, if you drag the sub-window close to the bottom-right corner, the indicator will then dock itself to that corner of the chart. If you resize the chart window, the indicator will automatically re-position itself so that it maintains the distance from the edge(s) of the chart. You can manually override the docking using the setting on the Inputs tab.
You can also change the following settings for the chart:
- The zoom level, i.e. how large each candle/bar is
- The amount of space (in pixels) at the top and bottom of the chart
- The amount of space (in pixels) at the right of the chart (i.e. equivalent to the chart-shift on MT4’s own chart)
- The height of the bar which shows the time and price corresponding to the position of the mouse. You can turn off this information bar entirely by setting the height to zero.
Indicators
You cannot add MT4 indicators (e.g. moving averages) to a Mini Chart, but you can use the Inputs tab to configure the display of popular indicator calculations. This includes drawing lines at fixed prices, i.e. the equivalent of drawing a horizontal line on a main MT4 chart.
You can define up to 10 indicator calculations. For each one, you can choose a drawing style and a colour.
For some indicators, you can change the parameters and/or or the type of price – close, high, low etc – which is used in the indicator calculation. In other words, the meaning of the Parameter A and Parameter B values on the Inputs tab depends on the type of indicator, as described below.
Moving averages (SMA, EMA, SMMA, LWMA)
The Parameter A value defines the period for the moving average calculation. You can also choose which price to apply the average to. Parameter B is unused.
Bollinger® bands
The Parameter A value defines the period for the average (the mid-point of the bands). The parameter B value defines the number of deviations for the bands, from the mid-point. You can also choose which type of price to use in the calculation.
Envelopes (SMA and EMA)
The Parameter A value defines the period for the moving average (the mid-point of the envelope bands). The Parameter B value defines the % for the envelopes, e.g. 0.1% from the moving average mid-point. You can also choose which type of price to use in the calculation
D1 high and low
Draws horizontal lines at the D1 high and low. The Parameter A value defines the offset, and the Parameter B value defines the number of D1 bars to include (defaulting to 1 if left at zero).
For example, Parameter A = 1 and Parameter B = 3 means “the high and low of the 3 D1 bars starting yesterday”.
