Multi Timeframe Boxes and Sessions - User Guide

Version 1.00 · MetaTrader 5 · free indicator

Multi Timeframe Boxes and Sessions draws two kinds of boxes on the chart:

• Timeframe boxes: the high-low range of each bar of a higher timeframe (MN, W1, D1, H4, H1, M30, M15, M5), so you can see on an M15 chart where yesterday's or last week's range was.
• Session boxes: the high-low range of the Asian, London and New York sessions, with start and end times you set.

Each kind of box has its own colour, line width, fill and fill transparency. The indicator does not trade, does not give signals or alerts and does not change anything outside the chart it is attached to.

About the input names in this guide. In the Inputs tab, MetaTrader shows each input by its description, for example Show D1 boxes or D1 filled. This guide writes the description in italics followed by the internal name in brackets, for example Show D1 boxes (ShowD1). XX stands for a timeframe (MN, W1, D1…) or a session (Asia, London, NewYork).

1. Installing

1. Download the indicator from the MQL5 Market from inside MetaTrader 5 (Toolbox → Market; free products are listed there too), or from the product page.
2. In the Navigator, open Indicators → Market and drag Multi Timeframe Boxes and Sessions onto a chart.
3. Change the inputs you want in the Inputs tab and press OK.

You can attach two or more copies to the same chart, each with its own settings (section 2).

To remove it: right-click the chart → Indicators List (Ctrl+I) → select it → Delete. Every box and label that copy drew is removed with it; the boxes of other copies stay. The boxes are hidden chart objects: they cannot be selected or moved by accident, and the Objects List (Ctrl+B) shows them only after you press List all.

2. Quick start

With the default inputs the indicator draws:

• D1 boxes (magenta outline): 90 boxes, that is the current day and the 89 before it (about four months), on any chart below D1;
• the Asian (gold, filled), London (green, filled) and New York (red, filled) sessions of the last 60 trading days, on charts of H1 and below.

The default session times are for brokers whose server clock is New York time + 7 hours (GMT+2 in winter, GMT+3 in summer), which is common among MetaTrader 5 brokers. If your broker's clock is different, set the session times as explained in section 4.

Typical set-ups. MetaTrader mixes the colours where filled boxes overlap (section 3), so each set-up fills only one kind of box:

Two configurations on one chart

Many traders want one set of boxes when the chart is on a higher timeframe and another when it is on a lower one. Attach the indicator twice and limit each copy to its chart timeframes with Draw only on charts from this timeframe... (FromChartTF) and ...up to this one (ToChartTF), the first group of inputs:

When you switch the chart from M5 to H4, copy 2 removes its boxes and copy 1 draws its own. A copy whose range does not include the chart's timeframe draws nothing and writes one line in the Experts tab.

Two copies may also be active at the same time, for example one with the timeframe boxes and one with the sessions. Give each copy different settings: two copies with exactly the same settings share their boxes, and removing one of them removes those boxes until the other redraws them.

3. What is drawn

Timeframe boxes

Each box spans one bar of its timeframe, from the bar's open time to the next bar's open time, and from the bar's high to its low. The box of the bar that is still forming grows as new prices arrive.

• Only timeframes higher than the chart's are drawn, so each box covers more than one chart bar. On an H1 chart, for example, H1, M30, M15 and M5 boxes are not drawn; if they are switched on, the Experts tab says so.
• XX boxes to draw, the current one included (CountXX) sets how many boxes of each timeframe are drawn: the current bar's box and the ones before it. They are bars, not calendar days: 90 D1 boxes cover about four months.
• Monthly boxes follow the real length of each month (28 to 31 days).
• Weekends and holidays: a box ends where the next bar of its timeframe starts, so a Friday D1 box ends at the Monday open and the gap shows no prices.

Session boxes

Each session box spans the session's start and end times on each server day, from the highest to the lowest price traded in between, measured on M1 bars.

• A session whose end time is not later than its start time ends the next day (for example 22:00–02:00, or the default New York 15:00–00:00).
• Extend the box to the end of the server day (00:00) (ExtendXX) continues the box to the next 00:00 server time, so you can see what the price does after the session; its height is still the session's range. It has no effect on a session that already ends at or after midnight, such as the default New York 15:00–00:00.
• The session in progress grows as new prices arrive; a session that has not started yet is not drawn.
• Show the session name on each box (SessionLabels) writes the name inside the box, at its top left corner. On H1 charts, sessions that start a few bars apart have overlapping labels; turn the labels off there if they get in the way.
• Sessions are drawn on charts of H1 or lower only.
• Days of sessions to draw (SessionDays) sets how many server days of sessions are drawn. A session is drawn only if the chart has M1 history for it: sessions older than the M1 history in the terminal are not drawn (see section 7).

Fill and transparency

MetaTrader 5 chart objects cannot be truly transparent. The indicator blends the fill colour with the chart's background colour, so a fill with Fill transparency 80 looks like 80 % transparent over the background. All boxes are drawn behind the bars, so candles are always visible.

Where two filled boxes overlap, MetaTrader 5 mixes their colours, so the overlap may show a colour different from both. If you combine several kinds of boxes, fill only one of them and draw the others as outlines.

If you change the chart's background colour, the indicator redraws the boxes with the new blend. On a light background the session labels are drawn in a darker shade of their colour so they stay readable; outlines keep the colour you chose.

Line width 0

Line width 0 draws no outline. With Filled on, the box is then just the coloured area; with Filled off, nothing is drawn for that box.

4. Session times and your broker's server time

Session times are entered in the broker's server time, the time on the chart's time axis. They are not your local time.

The defaults are for a server clock at New York + 7 hours:

On a New York + 7 server these stay aligned through the daylight saving changes of the United States. Europe and the United States change their clocks on different dates, so for two or three weeks a year the London session is one hour off.

How to find your server's clock. While the market is open, the title of the Market Watch window shows the server time (for example "Market Watch: 14:05:31"). Compare it with the current time in New York: the difference is your server's offset. A second check: forex opens for the week on Sunday at 17:00 New York time, so on an H1 chart of a forex pair the first candle after the weekend opens at 00:00 on a New York + 7 server and at 22:00 on a New York + 5 server. If your offset is not 7 hours, shift every session time by the difference: on a New York + 5 server, use 22:00–06:00, 08:00–17:00 and 13:00–22:00. Servers that do not follow the US daylight saving dates change their offset twice a year.

US index cash session: the regular session of the US stock market is 09:30–16:00 New York time, that is 16:30–23:00 on a New York + 7 server.

Shifting the timeframe boxes: TimeShift

Timeframe boxes follow the server's bars: on a New York + 7 server a D1 box runs from 17:00 to 17:00 New York time. Shift of every timeframe box (TimeShift) moves every timeframe box by a number of hours, positive or negative, and the box then shows the range of the shifted window. Example: 7 on a New York + 7 server draws D1 boxes from midnight to midnight New York time.

• When the shift is not a multiple of a timeframe (for example a 7-hour shift of H4 boxes, or any shift of monthly boxes), the range is measured on H1 bars.
• With a positive shift, the newest box appears when its shifted window starts (with 7, at 07:00 server time).
• A shift of a whole bar (for example 24 on D1 boxes) simply shows each box one bar later.

5. Inputs reference

Inputs come in groups, in this order. The eight timeframe groups have the same six inputs; the three session groups have the same eight.

Chart timeframes

Timeframe groups: MN, W1, D1, H4, H1, M30, M15, M5

Session groups: Asian, London, New York

General

6. Performance

On each update (once a second, and on each new chart bar) the indicator redraws only the most recent boxes; it redraws everything only when a new bar of a box's timeframe starts or more history is loaded. With the defaults it keeps about 630 chart objects. Hundreds of boxes on several timeframes mean thousands of objects and a slower chart: lower the numbers of boxes and the days of sessions if the chart feels slow.

7. If something looks wrong

The indicator writes its messages to the Experts tab of the Toolbox (not the Journal tab). Each message starts with "Multi Timeframe Boxes:". In the messages, timeframes are written MN1, W1, D1, H4, H1, M30, M15 and M5.