Engineering Trading Discipline into Code (Part 4): Enforcing Trading Hours and News Disabling in MQL5
An MQL5 control system that blocks orders outside scheduled trading hours and during scheduled news releases, converting time rules into executable restrictions. It combines a permissions management mechanism, a transaction-level expert advisor, and a visual dashboard for real-time status and upcoming restrictions. Configuration is accomplished using editable files, with caching and a CSV audit log for traceability.
MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 30): Class-Based Tool Palette Sidebar
We refactor the Tools Palette from a flat, function-based panel into a modular, class-driven sidebar in MQL5. The design introduces supersampled canvas rendering for anti-aliased shapes, theme control, a category registry, snap alignment, and selective corner rounding. The result is a reusable, scalable sidebar foundation that you can extend with tool selection, dragging, and fly-out menus in future steps.
Event-Driven Architecture in MQL5: How to Turn an Expert Advisor into a Full-Fledged Trading System
The article is dedicated to the event-driven architecture in MQL5 and describes the transition from the monolithic OnTick model to distributed processing. We will consider predefined and custom events, services and messaging between programs, as well as common architectural errors. A practical example demonstrates how to organize interactions between indicators and an EA to reduce load, improve readability, and simplify maintenance.
Manual Backtesting with On-Chart Buttons in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester
Learn how to build a manual backtesting EA for MetaTrader 5's visual tester by adding chart buttons with CButton, executing orders through CTrade, and filtering positions with a magic number. The article implements Buy/Sell and Close All controls, configurable lot size and initial SL, and a trailing stop via CPositionInfo. You will also see how to load indicators with tester.tpl to validate ideas faster before automation and narrow optimization ranges.
Leak-Free Multi-Timeframe Engine with Closed-Bar Reads in MQL5
The article presents two systematic pitfalls in MQL5 multi‑timeframe work: indicator handle leaks that exhausted resources and repainting from reading the forming bar (index 0). It introduces MTFEngine.mqh, a unified include that creates and tracks handles in one place and defaults all reads to closed bars (index 1). A D1–H4–H1 example shows how this approach keeps signals technically correct and consistent with charts.
MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 31): Creating an Interactive Tools Palette in MQL5
We turn the Tools Palette sidebar from a static shell into an interactive MQL5 system. The article implements flyout menus per category, a chart event handler, a multi-click drawing engine (one-, two-, and three-click tools), and mouse interactions including drag, bottom-edge resize, scrolling, hover states, and live theme toggling. You will be able to select a tool and place chart objects directly from the palette for analysis