Order Block Zones User Guide: How Zones Are Found, Reading the Panel and History, and Every Setting (Free and PRO)
What Order Block Zones is
Order Block Zones is an indicator that marks one candle pattern on your chart and draws it as a supply or demand zone: the last opposite-colour candle before a move that closes beyond it by a margin measured in ATR. Traders call these order blocks. The indicator finds them by a fixed rule on the candles; it does not see anyone's orders, and it gives no trade signals. It fades a zone once price has touched it, removes it once price has traded through it, and shows a small panel with zone counts, the nearest zones and a History sheet of what happened to each zone.
The free edition, Order Block Zones, works on the timeframe you are watching. Order Block Zones PRO adds a second layer of zones from one higher timeframe, Fair Value Gaps, and notifications when price comes near a fresh zone. Everything below applies to both editions unless marked Pro only.
Quick start
- Open a chart and drag the indicator onto it from the Navigator. It is an indicator, so it can sit on the same chart as an Expert Advisor.
- In the inputs, pick Language / 言語. The other defaults are a reasonable place to start. In Pro, set Touch distance (points) for the symbol (see Notifications below) and switch on Push notification if you want the alerts on your phone.
- Click OK. Zones appear on the chart and the panel opens in the top-right corner. Everything is recalculated every two seconds by default.
- Move the panel by dragging its header, or use the buttons at its top right to change the corner, the size or to collapse it. The panel remembers its place on that chart.
How a zone is found
The indicator starts at the bar before the last closed bar and looks back from there. A bearish candle becomes a demand zone when, within the next few candles (Break must occur within N bars, 3 by default), the first candle that closes above its high has moved at least one ATR (Min displacement (x ATR) to qualify) from the bearish candle's low to that candle's close. A bullish candle becomes a supply zone the same way in the other direction. If the first candle that closes beyond does not move far enough, that candle does not become a zone. The zone covers the whole candle, wicks included.
The ATR is the value of the last closed bar, used for every candle in the search. When volatility changes, a candle that qualified before can stop qualifying and the reverse, which is one reason zones appear and disappear over time.
The board keeps the newest zones only: 5 by default in the free edition and 8 in Pro (Max zones kept). The search stops as soon as that many are found, so an older zone can leave the chart while it is still inside the scan range and come back later. When two zones of the same side overlap (in Pro, within the same layer), only the newer one is kept.
Fresh, touched and broken. A zone is fresh until a closed bar after the breaking move reaches into it; from then on it is touched (mitigated), drawn in a faded colour, and never fresh again. A closed bar that closes beyond the far side breaks it for good. In addition, on every refresh a zone is left out while the current price is beyond its far side; if price comes back before a bar has closed beyond it, the zone returns. Because only closed bars decide freshness, a zone that price is entering on the forming bar still counts as fresh until that bar closes.
What is drawn on the chart
Each zone is a filled rectangle behind the candles, from its candle to a few bars past the current one (Extend zones to the right (bars)). Demand is green, supply is red, and touched zones are faded. A fresh zone gets a bright line on its near edge: the top of a demand zone, the bottom of a supply zone. At the right end a label reads Demand or Supply, with ·mit added once the zone has been touched.
Kill zones. Dotted frames without fill mark the London and New York session hours of the last few days, spanning the high and low of each window, labelled LDN 07-10 and NY 12-15 with the hours you set. The hours are in UTC and are converted to the broker's server time; they do not move with daylight saving time. A window that has not started yet is not drawn, and the current one grows as it runs. They are a time reference only and have no effect on the zones.
Pro only. Zones from the higher timeframe (4 hours by default) are drawn on the same chart with a thicker dashed edge and the timeframe in the label, for example Supply H4. Fair Value Gaps, the gap between the high of one candle and the low of the candle two bars later (or the reverse), are drawn as dark blue rectangles until a later closed bar has filled them completely.
Reading the panel
Header
The mark at the top left opens the About card. Next to ORDER BLOCKS is the chart timeframe. On the right are three buttons: the corner (TL, TR, BR, BL; each press moves the panel to the next corner clockwise), the size (S, M, L, XL) and collapse. Drag the header to put the panel anywhere; double-click it to send the panel back to its corner. Position, size, corner and the collapsed state are saved per chart.
ZONES
DEMAND and SUPPLY count the zones on the chart now, touched ones included. FRESH counts those that have not been touched yet. In Pro the higher-timeframe zones are counted too.
NEAREST ZONE
SUPPLY ▲ shows the nearest supply zone whose bottom is at or above the current bid, with that price and the distance in points. DEMAND ▼ shows the nearest demand zone whose top is at or below the bid. Touched zones are included, and in Pro higher-timeframe zones as well. A zone that the bid is currently inside is not shown here, because it is neither above nor below the price; the line then shows the next zone out, or — when there is none.
Legend and Alerts
The legend shows the colours for demand, supply and touched zones. Below it, the Alerts row shows PRO in the free edition; clicking it opens a short card describing Pro, which you close with Close. It opens only when you click it. In Pro the row shows ON; note that it reads ON even when notifications are switched off in the inputs.
History
The History button opens the History sheet described below. Next to it the panel shows how many events have been recorded and the time of the last one, or no events yet.
Collapsed strip
Collapsed, the panel keeps one line: the number of fresh zones on the left and D / S counts on the right. Collapsing closes the History sheet.
About card and rating card
The mark at the top left opens the About card: the version, the licence type, where to get support (the Comments tab of the product page), and a button to rate the product. After some real use, a card may ask for a rating; it appears at most three times in the free edition and twice in Pro, weeks apart, and never in the Strategy Tester. Don't ask again, or Show a one-time rating reminder (after a while) set to false, stops it.
The History sheet and the journal
Once per closed bar the indicator compares the zones on the board with those of the previous bar and records what changed. The History sheet (titled ZONE HISTORY) shows the newest twenty records: when the change was observed, the candle the zone formed on, the timeframe, the side, the price band and the reason. Pro marks records from the higher-timeframe layer with HTF. Hover a row to read it in full in the strip at the bottom; without hovering, the strip describes the newest row.
There are six reasons. new zone means a zone appeared on the board. first touch means a closed bar reached into a fresh zone. price broke through means the price was beyond the far side when the next bar started; this is the only reason that says the zone failed. replaced by newer zone means a newer overlapping zone of the same side took its place. pushed off the board means the zone is still inside the scan range but lost its place, usually because newer zones filled the limit; it can come back. left the scan window means its candle is now older than the bars the indicator scans, so it cannot come back. A zone that keeps leaving and returning stays on one row with a count such as x2.
The line under the title shows since when the sheet has been recording and how many events of each kind it has seen. The list lives in memory only: it starts empty after attaching, after a timeframe or input change and after a restart of the terminal, and the first record appears only after the first bar has closed. On first start the indicator waits up to about a minute for the terminal to deliver the symbol's history before it starts recording.
The same events are written to the Experts log, one line each, when Zone event journal (Experts log, once per closed bar) is on. The log lines are in English and begin with [OBZ journal]. Over a few weeks they let you count for yourself how zones on your symbol were touched, replaced or broken.
Notifications
The free edition sends no notifications of any kind. It writes only the journal lines described above.
Pro only. With Alert when price reaches a fresh zone on, Pro notifies when the bid comes within Touch distance (points) of a fresh zone, or inside it, on the chart timeframe or the higher timeframe. Each zone is announced once. It is not announced again until the indicator is reloaded, which happens when you attach it, change the timeframe or change an input; at that moment any fresh zone that is already within the distance is announced right away. A zone that has been touched on a closed bar is no longer fresh and is not announced. Fair Value Gaps do not trigger notifications.
The text names the symbol, the chart timeframe, the zone's own timeframe for higher-timeframe zones, the side, the price band and the distance in points, for example Order Block Zones USDJPY H1: price 42 pts from H4 demand zone 155.100-155.300, or price inside when the bid is already in the band. Popup shows it in the terminal's Alert window, and Push notification sends it to the MetaTrader app on your phone, which needs your MetaQuotes ID set in the terminal options. Every notification is also written to the Experts log, and a push that the terminal refuses is noted there with its error number.
The distance is in points, the symbol's smallest price step. 60 points, the default, is 6 pips on a five-digit currency pair but 0.60 on a symbol quoted with two decimals, so choose it per symbol. Notifications are checked on the refresh timer (every two seconds by default) against the bid, and only while the terminal is running and connected.
Free and Pro
Both editions use the same zone rule, the same panel, the same History sheet and the same journal, so a zone found by the free edition on your chart timeframe is found by Pro in the same place. The free edition keeps up to 5 zones by default and has no notifications. Pro keeps 8 zones on the chart timeframe by default, adds up to 3 zones by default from one higher timeframe of your choice, draws Fair Value Gaps and sends the notifications described above.
The higher-timeframe layer appears only when Higher timeframe is longer than the chart's timeframe. On an H4 or daily chart with the default of 4 hours, choose a longer timeframe, or there will be no higher-timeframe zones. The layer is also skipped in the Strategy Tester, where the kill zones are not drawn either.
The two editions can share one chart. Pro uses the object prefix obzp_ and keeps its own panel position, and when the free panel is already on the chart, or lands exactly on top of Pro, Pro moves to another corner so the two panels do not cover each other. If Pro was on a chart before version 1.46, its saved inputs still contain the prefix obz_; set Chart object prefix to obzp_, or attach Pro again, to see both panels. When you remove one of the two from a shared chart, the other one's buttons and dragging may stop responding until it is reloaded; changing the timeframe once is enough.
All settings
The table is generated from the shipped source of both editions, so it lists every input as the terminal shows it. The last column says which edition has it.
General
How the panel looks, where it sits and how often everything is recalculated. None of these change which zones are found.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language / 言語 | LANG_EN | Language of the panel, the History sheet, the zone labels on the chart, the Pro notifications and the rating card. LANG_JP also switches the font to Yu Gothic UI. The title ORDER BLOCKS, the size and corner buttons, the ON or PRO chip, the collapsed strip's D / S counts, the kill zone labels, every Experts log line and the input names stay in English. Choices: LANG_EN, LANG_JP | Free and Pro |
| Panel corner | C_TR | The corner the panel snaps to the first time it runs on a chart (C_TL top left, C_TR top right, C_BR bottom right, C_BL bottom left). Once the panel has a saved position on that chart, the saved position is used instead; change the corner with the corner button on the panel. Choices: C_TL, C_TR, C_BR, C_BL | Free and Pro |
| Panel size | SZ_L | The panel size the first time it runs on a chart: SZ_S, SZ_M, SZ_L or SZ_XL. Afterwards the size button on the panel decides, and its choice is saved per chart. Choices: SZ_S, SZ_M, SZ_L, SZ_XL | Free and Pro |
| Corner margin (px) | 14 | Distance in pixels between the panel and the edge of the chart when it snaps to a corner. | Free and Pro |
| Extra right gap for the price scale (px) | 64 | Extra pixels between a right-hand corner and the panel while the price scale is shown. It has no effect on the left corners or when the price scale is hidden, and negative values count as 0. The price scale does not cover the panel, so this only moves the panel further left; set 0 to place it next to the scale. | Free and Pro |
| Refresh seconds | 2 | Seconds between recalculations (1 or more; smaller values count as 1). Zones, panel numbers and Pro notifications are updated on this timer, not on every tick. | Free and Pro |
| Show a one-time rating reminder (after a while) | true | Despite the words one-time, the card asking for a rating can appear up to three times (Pro: twice), weeks apart. The first ask comes no earlier than 45 minutes after the first start and after 45 minutes of use (Pro: three hours), only while the mouse has moved over the chart in the last two minutes. Rating, or Don't ask again, ends it for good. false switches the card off; the mark at the top left of the panel always opens the About card with its Rate button. | Free and Pro |
Detection
The rule that turns a candle into a zone, and how many zones the board keeps.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bars to scan for order blocks | 320 | How many bars back the search for zones may go. The search starts at the newest bars and stops as soon as the board is full, so a larger value only matters when fewer zones than the limit are found. A zone whose candle is older than this leaves the chart (History: left the scan window). In Pro the same number of bars is used on the higher timeframe. | Free and Pro |
| Break must occur within N bars | 3 | How many candles after the zone candle may be used to break it. The first candle among them that closes beyond the zone candle decides: if its move is large enough (see the next setting) the zone is kept, otherwise that candle does not become a zone. | Free and Pro |
| Min displacement (x ATR) to qualify | 1.0 | How large the breaking move must be, in multiples of ATR: for a demand zone, from the zone candle's low to the close of the breaking candle; for a supply zone, from its high. The ATR used is the value of the last closed bar, applied to all candles, so zones can appear or disappear as volatility changes. Higher values give fewer zones. | Free and Pro |
| ATR period (displacement gauge) | 14 | Period of the ATR that measures the breaking move, on the chart timeframe (and in Pro, on the higher timeframe for that layer). | Free and Pro |
| Free: Max zones kept (PRO: more + MTF) / Pro: Max zones kept per timeframe | Free: 5 / Pro: 8 | The most zones kept on the chart timeframe, newest first. When a newer zone takes the last slot, the oldest one leaves the chart even though it is still inside the scan range (History: pushed off the board) and can come back later. The free edition's default is 5, Pro's is 8; Pro's higher-timeframe layer has its own limit. All layers together are capped at 60. | Free and Pro |
Display
What is drawn on the chart for each zone, and the zone event journal in the Experts log.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extend zones to the right (bars) | 8 | How many bars past the current bar every zone (and in Pro every Fair Value Gap) is extended to the right. | Free and Pro |
| Keep touched (mitigated) zones | true | true keeps zones that price has already touched on a closed bar, drawn in a faded colour with the label ending in mit. false hides them, so only fresh zones remain; they still count as touched and never become fresh again. With false, a touched zone simply leaves the board, so the History sheet records it as pushed off the board rather than as a first touch. | Free and Pro |
| Zone price labels at right edge | true | A Demand or Supply label at the right end of each zone (Pro adds the timeframe for higher-timeframe zones). | Free and Pro |
| Bright proximal edge line | true | A bright line on the near edge of each fresh zone: the top of a demand zone in green, the bottom of a supply zone in red. Pro draws it dashed and thicker for higher-timeframe zones. | Free and Pro |
| Zone event journal (Experts log, once per closed bar) | true | Writes one line to the Experts log for each zone event, once per closed bar: a new zone, its first touch, and why a zone left the chart. It only controls the log; the History sheet on the panel records the same events either way. | Free and Pro |
Sessions (kill zones)
Dotted frames around the London and New York session hours of recent days. They are a time reference only and do not affect the zones.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shade London / New York kill zones | true | Dotted frames, without fill, around the London and New York session hours of recent days, spanning the high and low of each window, labelled LDN and NY with the hours. They need the symbol's M15 history and are not drawn in the Strategy Tester. | Free and Pro |
| Kill-zone days to draw (1-10) | 5 | How many days of kill zones to draw, including today (1 to 10; values outside are clipped). | Free and Pro |
| London KZ start (UTC hour) | 7 | Start of the London window, as an hour in UTC. The indicator converts it to the broker's server time. It does not follow daylight saving time, so adjust it yourself if you want the window to follow London's local clock. | Free and Pro |
| London KZ end (UTC hour) | 10 | End of the London window, as an hour in UTC. It must be later than the start; a window that crosses midnight is not drawn. | Free and Pro |
| New York KZ start (UTC hour) | 12 | Start of the New York window, as an hour in UTC, converted to server time. It does not follow daylight saving time. | Free and Pro |
| New York KZ end (UTC hour) | 15 | End of the New York window, as an hour in UTC. It must be later than the start; a window that crosses midnight is not drawn. | Free and Pro |
PRO: higher timeframe
Pro only. A second layer of zones found on a higher timeframe and drawn on the chart you are watching.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overlay higher-timeframe order blocks | true | Finds zones with the same rule on the higher timeframe chosen in the next setting and draws them on this chart, with a timeframe tag and a dashed edge. They are counted on the panel, used by the notifications and recorded in the History sheet with an HTF tag. The layer appears only when that timeframe is longer than the chart's, and not in the Strategy Tester. | Pro only |
| Higher timeframe | 4 Hours | The higher timeframe for the second layer (default 4 hours). It has to be longer than the chart timeframe; on a chart of this timeframe or longer, no higher-timeframe zones are shown. | Pro only |
| Max HTF zones | 3 | The most higher-timeframe zones kept, newest first. This limit is separate from the chart timeframe's. | Pro only |
PRO: Fair Value Gaps
Pro only. Three-candle gaps on the chart timeframe, drawn until price has filled them.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draw Fair Value Gaps (imbalance) | true | Draws Fair Value Gaps on the chart timeframe: where the low of one candle is above the high of the candle two bars earlier (or the reverse), the gap between them. A gap is drawn at its full size until a later closed bar has filled all of it. Both directions share one colour, and gaps are not counted on the panel and do not trigger notifications. | Pro only |
| Max FVG kept | 6 | The most Fair Value Gaps kept, newest first (at most 24). | Pro only |
PRO: alerts
Pro only. A notification when price comes near a fresh zone. The free edition sends no notifications.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alert when price reaches a fresh zone | true | Notifies once per zone when the bid comes within the touch distance of a fresh zone, or inside it, on the chart timeframe or the higher timeframe. A zone already announced is not announced again until the indicator is reloaded (attaching, changing the timeframe or the inputs); on reload, a fresh zone that is already within the distance is announced right away. false turns notifications off; the panel still shows Alerts ON. | Pro only |
| Touch distance (points) | 60 | How near the bid must come to the zone, in points (the symbol's smallest price step). 60 points is 6 pips on a five-digit currency pair and 0.60 on a symbol quoted with two decimals, such as many gold feeds, so set it per symbol. | Pro only |
| Popup | true | Shows the notification in the terminal's Alert window. | Pro only |
| Push notification | false | Sends the notification to the MetaTrader app on your phone. It needs your MetaQuotes ID set in the terminal's options; if the terminal refuses a push, a line with the error number goes to the Experts log. Every notification is also written to the Experts log. | Pro only |
Identity
The name prefix of every chart object the indicator draws.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chart object prefix | Free: obz_ / Pro: obzp_ | Prefix of the names of every chart object the indicator draws, including the panel. Two copies on one chart need different prefixes. The free edition uses obz_ and Pro obzp_ by default, so both editions can share a chart; a Pro that was already on a chart before 1.46 keeps obz_ in its saved inputs, so change it to obzp_ or attach Pro again to show both panels. When the indicator is removed, all chart objects starting with this prefix are deleted. | Free and Pro |
Frequently asked questions
A zone disappeared and came back.
Zones are recalculated on every refresh. A zone is left out while the price is beyond its far side and returns if no bar has closed beyond it. A zone can also leave because newer zones filled the limit, or because the latest ATR changed whether its candle qualifies. The History sheet names the reason for each exit.
Why is the zone the price is in not shown under NEAREST ZONE?
That line shows zones above or below the price. A zone the bid is inside is neither, so the next zone out is shown instead.
I see no H4 zones in Pro.
Check that Overlay higher-timeframe order blocks is on and that Higher timeframe is longer than the chart timeframe. On an H4 chart with the default H4, nothing is drawn for that layer. The Strategy Tester does not show it either.
Pro sent the same zone again after I changed the timeframe.
Each zone is announced once until the indicator is reloaded. A timeframe or input change reloads it and starts the list of announced zones again.
The History sheet is empty.
It starts empty after attaching, after any timeframe or input change and after a restart, and fills as bars close. On a closed market, nothing is recorded until trading resumes.
The kill zones are an hour off.
The hours are fixed in UTC and do not follow daylight saving time. Set the four hour inputs one hour earlier while daylight saving time applies if you want them to follow the local clock of London or New York.
Panel corner and Panel size are ignored.
They apply only until the panel has a saved position on that chart; afterwards use the corner and size buttons. After the panel has been reopened from a saved position, it stays at that pixel position when the chart is resized; press the corner button or double-click the header to make it follow a corner again.
Can the free edition send alerts?
No. It writes the journal lines to the Experts log only.
What it does not do, and where it stops
It does not trade and gives no signals. The zones are a fixed candle rule, not a record of anyone's orders, and a zone being drawn says nothing about whether price will react there. It works only while the terminal is running, and it recalculates on a timer rather than on every tick, so what you see can be up to one refresh interval old.
The board shows a limited number of the newest zones, freshness is decided on closed bars, and the History sheet and the Pro notification memory last only until the indicator is reloaded. Pro compares the bid, not the ask, with the zone.
Apart from drawing, it saves its panel position to the terminal's global variables, keeps the rating card's state in a small file in the terminals' shared Common\Files folder, and turns on mouse-move events for its chart, switching them off again when it is removed, which can stop the mouse handling of another panel product on the same chart. When it is removed, it deletes every chart object whose name starts with its prefix. It uses no DLL and no web request.
Support
Post on the Comments tab of the product page (free edition, Pro). The symbol, the timeframe and what the panel or the History sheet showed are enough to start; the [OBZ journal] or [OBZ alert] lines from the Experts log help as well.
This guide describes Order Block Zones 1.45 and Order Block Zones PRO 1.46.
