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Testing Visualization
Testing Visualization
Testing Visualization
MetaTrader 5 Help
MetaTrader 5 Help → Algorithmic Trading, Trading Robots → Testing Visualization
Expert Advisors and Custom Indicators Where to Find Trading Robots and Indicators
Testing Visualization
In the Strategy Tester of the trading platform, you can test Expert Advisors and indicators in the
visual mode. This mode allows to visualize exactly how the Expert Advisor performs trade
operations during backtesting. Each trade of a financial instrument is displayed on its chart. In
the visual testing mode, you can test the operation of an indicator using historical data. This
feature allows to easily test the operation of demo versions of indicators downloaded from the
Market.
Start
To start the visual testing:
Enable the "Visualization" option in the Strategy Tester settings. When you select testing of
indicators, the visualization is enabled automatically.
Disable the optimization mode, because visualization is only available in the testing mode.
Make sure that one of local agents is used for testing. If a remote agent is selected for
testing, choose a local one using the " Select" command in its context menu.
If all of the above conditions are met, clicking on the "Start" button opens the visualization
window.
Chart
A chart is the primary means of testing process visualization. It is similar to conventional charts of
the platform, but has a number of specific features:
Using a Template
You can change the appearance of a chart, show indicators or graphical objects on it using
templates. For a template to be applied, its name must match the name of the tested Expert
Advisor. The template should be placed in folder /profiles/templates of the trading platform.
Market Watch
The Market Watch window shows prices generated during testing. It is similar to the Market
Watch of the trading platform, but has some specific features. To show/hide this window, use the
Market Watch command in the View menu or press Ctrl+M.
The Symbols tab features the current price information of financial instruments. The list of
displayed symbols is limited to the main testing symbol, as well as the symbols whose data are
used by the Expert Advisor.
Data Window
This window is used to display information about the prices (OHLC), date and time of a bar,
spread, volume and indicators. Here you can quickly find information about a particular bar and
applied indicators at a selected point of the chart. The window can be enabled or disabled by
clicking "Data Window" in the View menu or pressing Ctrl+D.
The upper part of the window contains the name of a financial instrument and the chart period.
Information about the current cursor position on the chart is shown below. Information about
indicators open in separate subwindows is shown in separate blocks.
Toolbox
Toolbox is a multifunctional window, in which you can view an Expert Advisor's trading activity
during testing, as well as view the journal of a testing agent. To show/hide this window, use the
Toolbox command in the View menu or press Ctrl+T keys.
Trade
The "Trade" tab contains information about the current state of the trading account, open
positions and placed pending orders. All open positions can be sorted by any field. To do this,
click on its name.
Positions
Account state
The current account state is shown below the open trading positions:
Balance — amount of money on the account, the results of currently open positions are
not included.
Equity — the amount of money taking into account the results of the currently open
positions;
Margin — money required to cover open positions.
Free Margin — the free amount of money that can be used to maintain open positions;
Margin Level — percentage of the account equity to the margin volume;
Total of deals — total financial result of all open positions. With the positive result of
positions, icon is shown, with negative — .
Pending orders
Placed pending orders are shown below the current account state:
History
The history of trade operations is available in the History tab. There are three modes of viewing
the history of trade operations: only deals, only orders, deals and orders; you can switch between
them in the context menu.
Orders
The history of placed orders is displayed in a table with the following fields:
Deals
The history of deals is also displayed in a table with the following fields:
The bottom line shows the trade execution results relative to the initial deposit:
Profit — profit or loss relative to the initial deposit. For losses, the sign is shown in this
field, for profit — ;
Deposit — the amount of deposit;
Withdrawal — amount withdrawn from the account.
The value of the current balance of the account is shown at the end of the line.
Operations
All trade requests made by an Expert Advisor during testing are shown in the Operations tab. In
addition to buy and sell requests, you can track the modifications of pending orders, stop levels
of positions, etc.
The history of trade operations is displayed in a table with the following fields:
Time — time of the trade operation request. The record is represented as YYYY.MM.DD
HH:MM (year.month.day hour:minute);
Ticket — ticket number (unique number) of a trade operation;
Symbol — the symbol of a requested trade operation;
Action — type of a requested action (instant execution of a trade operation, modification
of stop levels, etc.);
Type — direction of a trade operation (buy or sell);
Volume — the volume of a requested trade operation;
Price — the price at which the trade operation is requested;
S/L — the Stop Loss level in a trade request;
T/P — the Take Profit level in a trade request;
Comment — a comment to a request.
Journal
This tab contains the logs of the agent that is used for testing an Expert Advisor. All actions of the
agent and the Expert Advisor during testing are logged in the Journal.
As long as the visualizer is open, the logs of testing agents are not sent to the Strategy Tester
of the trading platform. Nevertheless, they can be viewed via the trading platform using the
"Journals of local agents" command in the context menu.
Journal of Testing →
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