News Filter for EAs Free Live Demo version: install and first run
This is the install guide for the free demo version of News Filter for EAs. The demo is the complete panel: same code, same settings, same interface, nothing switched off and no time limit. The one difference from the purchased version is the account type — the demo runs on demo accounts only. On a live account it stops during initialization and says so.
That restriction is the point of the test. A news filter cannot be judged in the strategy tester: releases are live and no other charts exist there, so the panel only renders its interface. The single way to find out whether it suits your robots is to put it on a demo account with those robots and let it work through a real news week.
Files and links
Both platform builds are attached to this article:
- (Demo MT5) — News Filter for EAs Demo.ex5 for MetaTrader 5
- (Demo MT4) — News Filter for EAs Demo.ex4 for MetaTrader 4
The full versions, with no account restriction, are on the Market:
- (News Filter for EAs — MT5)
- (News Filter for EAs — MT4)
Every tab, rule and setting is described in the (User Manual). This article covers the install and the first run only.
Step 1. Put the file into the Experts folder
- In the terminal open File → Open Data Folder.
- Go to MQL5 → Experts (in MetaTrader 4 — MQL4 → Experts).
- Copy the downloaded file there: .ex5 for MT5, .ex4 for MT4.
- Back in the terminal, right-click Expert Advisors in the Navigator and choose Refresh. News Filter for EAs Demo appears in the list.
There are no sources to compile — this is a ready expert advisor.
Step 2. Drag it onto one chart of a demo account
The panel goes onto one chart of your choice. It finds the other open charts by itself and detects the expert advisor running on each of them. A second copy is not needed, and no helper script goes onto the protected charts.
- Open a chart on a demo account — pick a symbol you do not mind hosting the panel on.
- Drag News Filter for EAs Demo onto it from the Navigator.
- In the properties dialog, Common tab, tick Allow Algo Trading and press OK.
- Make sure the Algo Trading button (AutoTrading in MT4) in the toolbar is green.
A second later the panel is on the chart:
| # | What it is |
|---|---|
| 1 | ARMED — protection is live for the whole terminal. This is the default; nothing else has to be switched on. |
| 2 | No calendar yet. The first download runs on the first timer tick, so the panel appears instantly and honestly says it is waiting. |
| 3 | Every open chart is already registered together with the expert advisor found on it. |
| 4 | The chart hosting the panel is excluded automatically and never gets detached. |
| 5 | Feed status. A dash means nothing has been downloaded yet; after the first successful refresh it reads FF - 12s ago. |
If the panel did not appear, open the Experts tab in the Toolbox — the reason is printed there. Algo trading left off is the usual one.
Step 3. Allow the calendar download
The default news source is Forex Factory, and the terminal blocks any network request from an expert advisor until the address is whitelisted. This is a one-time setting:
| # | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tick Allow WebRequest for listed URL in Tools → Options → Expert Advisors. Without it the terminal blocks the download and the panel reports WebRequest blocked instead of loading events. |
| 2 | Type the address exactly as shown: https://nfs.faireconomy.media. Press OK and restart the panel. From then on the calendar refreshes itself every 60 minutes. |
MetaTrader 5 has an alternative that needs no setup at all: in Setup → GENERAL → News source choose the built-in MT5 economic calendar. It works immediately, provided your broker serves calendar data. MetaTrader 4 has one source, Forex Factory, so the whitelist entry is required there.
Step 4. Check that protection is live
A minute after the download is allowed the panel looks like this — and this is the state you can leave it working in:
| # | What to look at |
|---|---|
| 1 | The master switch is still ARMED: one click disarms the whole terminal if you want the EAs to trade through a release. |
| 2 | The nearest event that passed your filters, with a live countdown and the minute the window opens. |
| 3 | Timeline of the next eight hours: one tick per selected event, the shaded band is the protection window, the bright line is now. |
| 4 | Charts waiting for that window. ARMED becomes PROTECTED once the EA is detached, then RESTORING, then ARMED again. |
| 5 | Preview next event prints a full dry run to the Experts journal: which charts are covered, with which windows, and what happens to every position and pending order. |
Click Preview next event once before you leave the terminal alone. It changes nothing — it shows in advance exactly what the panel will do in the real window.
What the demo actually limits
Nothing but the account type. The check runs at startup and is visible in the Experts journal:
On a demo account the panel starts normally and registers the charts. On a live account initialization stops, the reason goes to the journal, and the same sentence is shown as an alert. The panel never reaches the chart, so there is nothing to clean up.
The Market versions have no such check: same interface, same rules, any account.
If something goes wrong
The panel did not appear after the drag. Check the Experts tab in the Toolbox and the Algo Trading button in the terminal.
waiting for calendar data never goes away. The calendar has not downloaded. Check the whitelist entry — it must be exactly https://nfs.faireconomy.media, with no stray spaces, and the Allow WebRequest for listed URL box has to be ticked. In MT5 you can simply switch the source to the built-in calendar. If the source is temporarily unavailable, the panel keeps working from the last schedule it downloaded and never drops protection silently.
A chart row says manual. There is no expert advisor on that chart, so there is nothing to detach — only positions and pending orders are handled, by your rules.
Nothing is protected in the strategy tester. By design: releases are live, no other charts exist there, and the panel runs in interface preview mode.
What next
The demo gives full access to everything, so walk through the settings with the (User Manual): impact levels with their own windows before and after a release, keywords, actions for positions and pending orders, profiles for different groups of charts, and presets that snapshot the whole panel.
When you decide to run it on a live account, the full version is on the Market: (News Filter for EAs — MT5) or (News Filter for EAs — MT4). It installs straight from the terminal through Market → Purchased → Install, the licence is tied to your MQL5 account, and your settings, profiles and chart assignments carry over as they are.
