Accessing indicators values NOT using iCustom?

[Tom Clayson]

I use a lot of fairly processor intensive indicators in my manual trading, at the moment I am thinking about how I would implement my strategy in an EA, the primary problem I am having is that using iCustom to get the indicator values for even just a couple bars either causes the terminal to freeze or takes several minutes - neither of which are very convenient as you can imagine. For indicators that are currently on the chart, is there any way to access their buffer values directly? If not the other alternative I thought about would be having each indicator store its recent values in golab variables or in text files which could then be read by the EA. Would I have issues with the EA trying to access the GBVs or the files before they have been updated for the latest bar?

[Paul]

Why not do what the experts do and code the indicators in the EA maybe even DLLs instead of mq4 although doing it in mq4 has always been sufficient for my purposes.

[meikel]

i cant imagine that there is any difference between an attached indicator and icustom, neither in results of the calculation or speed.

that would make no sense.

an indicator attached to a chart does the same calculations as if it is called from an ea via icustom.

only if you attach the indicators to the chart AND the ea, the calculations are made 2 times, thats all

[Tom Clayson]

My knowledge of what exactly happens with iCustom is called is limited - but as far as I know calling using iCustom the indicator is loaded and unloaded each time is it not? I use five or so values from each indicator on three timeframes. So for each of these values the indicator must be loaded, all the values calculated, and then just that one returned. Whereas if the indicator is placed on the chart it remains running and the buffer values remain in memory somewhere, so on the appearance of a new bar only one new value need be calculated. Please correct me if I am wrong here.

Ruptor - I would/will perhaps eventually do that, but it is a very large undertaking so I would like to just get a working 'basic' version that I can use to gauge whether my system would be worthwhile automating.

[William Roeder]

The indicator isn't unloaded each time, it is loaded once but not displayed. If you change the parameters (other than shift) then another copy is loaded.

If you use the tester in visual mode and then stop it, all the hidden indicators are shown.