XTesterDownloaded Charts
Open charts of downloaded data and add indicators and chart layers.
Move around the chart
Clicking a pair in Data opens its own floating chart window. Clicking it again focuses that window. Selecting another pair inside a chart replaces that window’s contents; an already open pair is focused instead.
- Chart toolbar
- Chart area
Open Another Chart in the chart context menu (and in the command palette while a chart is active) opens one more window of the same pair beside it: it starts on the same timeframe, and you switch one of the two. Such a window keeps its own timeframe and visible range — the charts of the same native window do not move it — while the crosshair, the simulation candles, orders and fills reach it like any other chart.
The tabs are numbered (#2, #3…), closing one leaves the others, and after a restart the windows come back each on its own timeframe. Clicking the pair in Data and the Downloaded Charts view always open or focus the window without a number: when only numbered windows of the pair are left, they open a new one.
Drag the plot to pan and use the wheel to zoom. At maximum zoom-out (1500 bars of the selected timeframe), scrolling the wheel towards you pans in the cursor’s direction: right on the right half, left on the left half. Moving closer to the center reduces the shift.
The lower timeline provides a history overview. Click it to visit a date, drag its window to pan, or drag the window edges to change the visible interval. The left/right arrows move one screen; the outer buttons go to the beginning/end. The date and time field uses local time and preserves zoom.
With the chart focused, Left/Right and Page Up/Page Down move one screen, while Home/End go to the edges. During a simulation, End returns to model time. Loading additional candles can take time; watch the panel status.
Measuring ruler
Select Ruler, then hold the left mouse button and drag between two points on the plot. A dashed line joins the endpoints; the label shows price and percentage change, bar count and elapsed time. Time is measured continuously between the chosen points, so the ruler can measure hours within a daily candle. Releasing the button clears the measurement; the tool stays selected for another measurement.
Select Ruler again or press Esc to return to normal panning. For a quick measurement without selecting the tool, hold Ctrl or Alt while dragging; Cmd also works on macOS. Ruler mode is independent in each chart window.
Price and time scales
Drag the price scale to adjust its range. Double-click the price scale to restore automatic scaling. The time axis can be used to adjust the horizontal scale.
- Chart toolbar
- Chart area
Scale settings are remembered by pane role where supported. Changing the interface theme should change the chart colors without changing the visible time interval or price scale.
Changing timeframe preserves the center and visible candle count. Very wide or narrow views settle within 12–600 candles of the new timeframe.
The countdown below the current price shows the time left until the candle closes. It follows model time, or the test period start before a run, and stays unchanged while the simulation is paused.
Indicators and trade markers
The history panel’s Indicators action adds supported indicator overlays or separate panes. Indicator chips identify active instances and provide removal actions. Removing a chart instance does not delete strategy source.
- Chart toolbar
- Chart area
For a simulation session, the history chart shows its fills as markers with hover details; compare them with the trade table. Dense zoom can make individual markers difficult to distinguish; zoom in or use the table for exact records. A completed backtest draws no markers on the charts: click a trade’s row on the Trades tab to show its entry bar on the open charts.
The Levels indicator
Levels builds a map of support and resistance. Levels come from swings, the volume profile, the daily high and low, round numbers and a composite source; each carries a strength from 0 to 1, and its label shows the price and that strength.
During a run, the map uses the current simulation time, the right edge of the history replayed so far. It includes only candles closed by that time. Before the run, it uses the start of the test period when set, or the end of available history.
Market phases on the chart
Show Market Phases in the chart context menu shades the history behind the candles: green for a rise, red for a fall, blue for a range and grey for a transition, with the name on every band wide enough for it and a legend above the plot. Unshaded stretches are warm-up or missing minutes. The switch is kept for each chart window; Hide Market Phases removes the bands.
Market phases use the open chart’s instrument, timeframe and visible cutoff. Another selected project’s dates do not truncate this analysis. The phases are those a strategy gets from context.MarketPhases() with the default settings, on the chart’s own timeframe: the band over a bar is the phase known when it opened.
They stop where the indicators stop — at the model time of a run or at the start of the test period — and never read past it. Calendar months and years have no fixed bar and show no phases; a view wider than 100,000 bars asks you to zoom closer.
The future veil
During a simulation the data to the right of the current model instant is hidden. The veil prevents seeing what the strategy could not have seen at that moment.
- Instrument, timeframe and following mode.
- Candles and the area hidden beyond model time.
The veil is lifted and restored by their own commands. A lifted veil is a tool for reviewing a run that has already been computed, not a mode a strategy runs in.
The veil hangs on every chart of the window, including charts of other pairs: before a run at the Start of the test period, during a session at its model time. When the whole downloaded history of a pair begins later, the chart is empty and says so. Show the Future also reveals candles past the model time of a prepared or running session; indicator values behind the veil stay hidden.
The forming candle
During a simulation the last candle forms right on the chart: it updates about ten times a second, and its close is the price the engine is filling orders at that instant. The crosshair legend marks such a candle as forming.
The candle is assembled from minute data: the closed minutes of the current bar plus a partial minute the engine builds itself. There are no ticks inside a minute in storage, so the price path within it is an estimate along a fixed route from the open through both extremes to the close, not real trades: a rising or doji minute visits its low first, a falling one its high first (at 19.8 and 39.6 seconds).
The engine fills orders and builds the synthetic book along the same route. Within one bar the candle only grows: the high and low never retreat, and the volume never falls.
The strategy does not see this candle: indicators and OnBar receive closed bars only, as before. That asymmetry is deliberate: the chart shows what is happening to the price in the engine right now, while the strategy still cannot look inside an unclosed bar.
Smoothness depends on Display Mode in the simulation window. Visual Simulation with a small Delay between Ticks gives the picture of a live terminal: model time advances evenly and the candle fills in before your eyes. As Fast as Possible moves model time in jumps: more than a bar passes per frame, only closed candles remain on the chart, and a hint next to Follow the Simulation says so. With Step By set to Bar a step is a whole bar, so there is no forming candle at all.
Running from the chart
Start, pause, step and stop are available from the chart. A step moves the session by one bar; a separate command moves it by several at once.
Breakpoints are set and cleared from the chart context menu at the nearest instant and apply while stopping at breakpoints is enabled.
During a simulation every chart in the window follows the model time: once the last candle reaches the middle of the plot, the chart scrolls with it. Dragging a chart, zooming it with the mouse wheel or moving it to another date stops following in the whole window; zooming by dragging the time axis and a double-click that fits the chart keep following. Follow the Simulation on any chart resumes following for all of them.
Each chart draws the open orders and fills of its own pair; a chart of another pair names the pair the session runs on. How smoothly the time moves depends on Display Mode: in As Fast as Possible model time advances in jumps, in Visual Simulation it moves evenly.
Related commands
Command Palette reference
Find these actions by name in the Command Palette; availability depends on the current project and operation state.
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