Advanced Custom Study Interaction With Menus, Control Bar Buttons, Pointer Events

sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem()

ACSIL Function

int AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem(long ChartNumber, const char * MenuText);

The sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem() function is for adding a custom menu command to the Chart Shortcut menu that displays when you right-click on a chart. The name of the command will be the text specified by the MenuText parameter. The command is added to the chart specified by ChartNumber. The function returns a unqiue menu integer command ID when successful.

You should only add a particular menu command item only once. Although when you add a menu item with the same MenuText, it will not be added again and you will be returned the very same menu item ID previously returned for that text.

Once a menu item has been added, the study function instance is called when the user selects the menu item from the Chart Shortcut Menu which is displayed when right clicking on a chart. The selected menu item identifier is obtained through the sc.MenuEventID ACSIL member given to the custom study function instance.

When a study is removed from a chart, the study should always remove any custom Chart Shortcut Menu commands by calling sc.RemoveACSChartShortcutMenuItem(). This can be done when sc.LastCallToFunction is nonzero.

int& MenuID = sc.PersistVars->i1;

if (sc.Index == 0)// Only do this when calculating the first bar.
{
    // Add chart short cut menu item
    if (MenuID <= 0)
        MenuID = sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem(sc.ChartNumber, "Menu Example Menu Item 1");

    if (MenuID < 0)
        sc.AddMessageToLog("Add ACS Chart Shortcut Menu Item failed", 1);
}

if (sc.MenuEventID != 0 && sc.MenuEventID == MenuID)
    sc.AddMessageToLog("User selected ACS Chart Shortcut Menu Item", 1);
            

sc.RemoveACSChartShortcutMenuItem()

ACSIL Function

bool RemoveACSChartShortcutMenuItem(long ChartNumber, int MenuID);

sc.RemoveACSChartShortcutMenuItem() is used to remove a custom chart shortcut menu command, associated with MenuID previously added with sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem(), from the specified chart (ChartNumber). The function returns 1 when the menu item command was successfully removed. Or returns 0 on an error removing the menu item command.

Chart shortcut items should always be removed when the study is removed. This can be done by calling this function when sc.LastCallToFunction is nonzero.

if (sc.LastCallToFunction)
{
    // Be sure to remove the menu command when study is removed
    sc.RemoveACSChartShortcutMenuItem(sc.ChartNumber, MenuID);
}
            

sc.SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemDisplayed()

ACSIL Function

int SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemDisplayed(long ChartNumber, int MenuItemID, bool DisplayItem);

sc.SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemEnabled()

ACSIL Function

int SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemEnabled(long ChartNumber, int MenuItemID, bool Enabled);

sc.SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemChecked()

ACSIL Function

int SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemChecked(long ChartNumber, int MenuItemID, bool Checked);

The sc.SetACSChartShortcutMenuItemChecked function adds or removes a checkmark beside the ACSIL menu command specified with MenuItemID for the chart specified with ChartNumber. Set Checked to FALSE to remove the check mark . Set Checked to TRUE to add a check mark.

sc.PlaceACSChartShortcutMenuItemsAtTopOfMenu

ACSIL boolean variable

The sc.PlaceACSChartShortcutMenuItemsAtTopOfMenu variable can be set anywhere within the custom study function.

When it is set to TRUE, then all menu items added with sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuItem(), will be listed at the top of the Chart Shortcut menu.

sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuSeparator()

ACSIL Function

int AddACSChartShortcutMenuSeparator(long ChartNumber);

The sc.AddACSChartShortcutMenuSeparator function will add a separator line to the Chart Shortcut menu below the last added ACSIL menu command.

sc.ChangeACSChartShortcutMenuItemText()

ACSIL Function

int ChangeACSChartShortcutMenuItemText(int ChartNumber, int MenuIdentifier, const char * NewMenuText);

The sc.ChangeACSChartShortcutMenuItemText function modifies the text of the menu item for the Chart Shortcut menu identified by the MenuIdentifier parameter.

The new text is specified by the NewMenuText parameter.

The ChartNumber parameter specifies particular chart the menu is associated with.

The function returns TRUE if the menu item text was successfully changed.

Introduction

There are 150 Advanced Custom Study buttons available for custom studies to interact with on the Control Bar.

These buttons can be added to any of the Control Bars.

These buttons serve 2 purposes.

They can be used to signal to an Advanced Custom Study, that is monitoring for them, whether a particular button is selected or not. In other words whether the button is in a pushed in state or not (on/off).

So this allows a study to monitor for an On/Off state using a particular Control Bar button. This provides a lot of useful functionality for a custom study including even one-time button events where the button does not remain in an On state, which is explained further in this section.

The second purpose of these Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons is that when one of them is selected (On state), the study function instances on the chart that have requested to receive Pointer events by setting sc.ReceivePointerEvents = ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_WHEN_ACS_BUTTON_ENABLED in the study function, will receive those events as the Pointer is moved around or used on the chart that contains the study function instance. These events include Pointer Button Down, Pointer Button Up, Pointer Move.

For a working example for all of this, refer to the scsf_MenuAndPointerExample() function in the /ACS_Source/studies.cpp file in the folder where Sierra Chart is installed to.

It is also supported to assign keyboard shortcuts to these Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons. To do this, select Global Settings >> Customize Keyboard Shortcuts. In the Commands list, expand the Custom Study Control Bar Button Keyboard Shortcuts list. For complete documentation, refer to Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts.

The On/Off state of Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons is remembered per individual chart. So depending upon what chart is active, effects the on/off state of these buttons, depending upon their usage with that chart or how an Advanced Custom Study study has set them.

Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Buttons

To use the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons, they need to be added to the Control Bar. To do this, select Global Settings >> Customize Control Bars >> Control Bar # to add them to the Control Bar.

Look in the Advanced Custom Study Buttons list. You will find listed Custom Study Button 1-150. Add any of these to the Control Bar that you require.

Once added to the Control Bar, these Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons toggle between On and Off, and visually show the state by being pushed in or out on the Control Bar.

This has changed effective with version 2268: Only one Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button can be active at any time for a particular chart. Therefore, selecting an Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button also effectively disables the currently active Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button.

Effective with version 2268 and higher, any number of Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons can be in an On state at the same time.

The Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button state changes caused by pressing one of these buttons are sent to all of the studies on the active chart. This occurs by the study functions being called and the setting of the ACSIL variable sc.PointerEventType.

The possible values for sc.PointerEventType are: SC_ACS_BUTTON_ON, SC_ACS_BUTTON_OFF. The specific ACS Control Bar button that is toggled on or off is determined through ACSIL variable sc.MenuEventID. The possible values for sc.MenuEventID are ACS_BUTTON_1 through ACS_BUTTON_150.

Receiving Pointer Events

An Advanced Custom Study on a chart can receive Pointer events (SC_POINTER_BUTTON_DOWN, SC_POINTER_MOVE, SC_ POINTER_BUTTON_UP) when the Pointer is moved around or clicked on the chart the study function instance is applied to.

To have the study function instance receive these events, set sc.ReceivePointerEvents to one of the following constants: ACS_RECEIVE_NO_POINTER_EVENTS, ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_WHEN_ACS_BUTTON_ENABLED, ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS, ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS_FOR_ALL_TOOLS anywhere within the study function.

If sc.ReceivePointerEvents is set to ACS_RECEIVE_NO_POINTER_EVENTS, the Pointer events will not be received by the study function instance.

If sc.ReceivePointerEvents is set to ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_WHEN_ACS_BUTTON_ENABLED and one of the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Buttons 1-150 is selected (On state) for the chart, then the Pointer events will be received by the study function .

If sc.ReceivePointerEvents is set to ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS, then the Pointer events will be received by the study function whether or not an Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Buttons 1-150 is selected (On state) for the chart or not.

These Pointer events are only passed to custom studies on the chart when the active Tool is Tools >> Pointer, Tools >> Chart Values, or Tools >> Hand. Otherwise, they are not unless sc.ReceivePointerEvents is set to ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS_FOR_ALL_TOOLS.

Additionally, Pointer events into a custom study will not be received when adjusting the size of a Chart Region.

Once a particular Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Button 1-150 is enabled (On state) and sc.ReceivePointerEvents is set to ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_WHEN_ACS_BUTTON_ENABLED or ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS / ACS_RECEIVE_POINTER_EVENTS_ALWAYS_FOR_ALL_TOOLS, Pointer events will begin to be received into the custom study function instance as the events occur.

The custom study function instance will be called on an event and the sc.PointerEventType will be set with the particular event constant (SC_POINTER_BUTTON_DOWN, SC_POINTER_MOVE, SC_POINTER_BUTTON_UP).

The ACSIL variable sc.MenuEventID indicates which Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Button is currently selected. The possible values are the constants ACS_BUTTON_1 through ACS_BUTTON_150.

The Pointer location can be determined through the sc.ActiveToolIndex member, which indicates the chart bar index the Pointer is hovering over. And sc.ActiveToolYValue member, which indicates the vertical coordinate value of the Pointer position according to the scale of the Chart Region the Pointer is currently in.

The sc.ActiveToolIndex and the sc.ActiveToolYValue values are updated with Pointer movements and Pointer click operations. They are updated with the last movement or operation received. When an Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button is pressed, these values are not updated on that event and will be what they last were when using the Pointer over the chart.

The setting Chart >> Chart Settings >> Performance >> ACSIL Pointer Events Minimum Calling Interval In Milliseconds, regulates the flow of events to the custom study by limiting the number of times the study is called over a short time. There may be too much processing to be calling the custom study on every event. This setting sets the minimum interval that has to elapse, before calling the custom study function again as compared to previously. This setting is new as of version 2575.

sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonText()

ACSIL Function

void SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonText(int ControlBarButtonNum, const char* ButtonText);

The sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonText() function is used to change the text for the specified Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button to the ButtonText parameter.

There are 150 Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons (1-150), and ControlBarButtonNum specifies which is being changed. This function is typically paired with a call to sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonHoverText() to also change the the text displayed when hovering over the button with the Pointer.

sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonHoverText()

ACSIL Function

void SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonHoverText(int ControlBarButtonNum, const char* ToolTip);

The sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonHoverText() function is used to change the text displayed when hovering over the specified Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button with the Pointer, to the ToolTip text parameter.

There are 150 Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons (1-150), and ControlBarButtonNum specifies which is being changed. The ToolTip text parameter is also used to provide a description of the button in the Control Bar Customization window. This function is typically paired with a call to sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonText() to also change the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button text.

sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnable()

ACSIL Function

void SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnable(int ControlBarButtonNum, int Enable);

The sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnable() function is used to set state of the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button specified by the ControlBarButtonNum parameter to the value of the Enable parameter. Enable can be TRUE or FALSE.

There are 150 Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons (1-150), and ControlBarButtonNum specifies which is being changed.

The Control Bar buttons, 1 through 150, can be toggled On (enabled) and Off (disabled). Visually this state is shown for the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button by the button being pushed in (On/Enabled) or out (Off/Disabled) on the Control Bar.

Effective with version 2268, there can be multiple Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons on/enabled at the same time.

sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonColor()

ACSIL Function

void SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonColor(int ControlBarButtonNum, const uint32_t Color);

The sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonColor() function is used to set the background color of the Custom Study Control Bar button specified by the ControlBarButtonNum parameter to the color value specified by the Color parameter. Color is an RGB color value.

There are 150 Custom Study Control Bar buttons (1-150), and ControlBarButtonNum specifies which is being changed.

sc.GetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnableState()

ACSIL Function

int GetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnableState(int ControlBarButtonNum);

The sc.GetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnableState() function returns the state of the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button specified by the ControlBarButtonNum parameter.

1 is returned when the button is in the enabled or On state. 0 is returned when the button is in the not enabled or Off state.

There are 150 Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons (1-150), and ControlBarButtonNum specifies which is being changed.

ACS Control Bar Button Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts can be set up for any of the 150 Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons.

To set the keyboard shortcuts, select Global Settings >> Customize Keyboard Shortcuts . The Control Bar buttons are listed in the Custom Study Control Bar Button Keyboard Shortcuts list. In that list you will see Custom Study Control Bar Button # items listed. These correspond to each of the Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons 1 through 150.

sc.BlockChartDrawingSelection

The default value for this variable is 0.

The sc.BlockChartDrawingSelection ACSIL variable when set to 1 will block Chart Drawing selection on the chart when using your system Pointer. When set to 0, the normal behavior applies to Chart Drawing selection.

Setting this to 1 may be useful when implementing support for Pointer events to prevent the selection of existing Chart Drawings when the user is interacting with the chart with the Pointer.

Be sure to set this variable to 0 when your study function is done with handling chart Pointer events.

When using Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Buttons and Pointer Events to implement a custom drawing tool when drawing a user drawn drawing on the chart, you should set sc.BlockChartDrawingSelection to 1 when you start the drawing on the first SC_POINTER_BUTTON_DOWN event, and then set it to 0 when user drawn drawing is complete after the final SC_POINTER_BUTTON_DOWN event. This will block the selection of the user drawn drawing that has been added, on the second SC_POINTER_BUTTON_DOWN event and allow the mouse clicks to be properly routed to the custom study.

Maintaining Multiple On States For Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Buttons

This section is not directly relevant with version 2268 and higher but this technique can still be useful and informative.

As is documented, only one Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button can be active at any time for a particular chart. Therefore, selecting an Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button also effectively disables the currently active Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button.

If you need to be able to support multiple control bar buttons to be enabled at the same time, an alternative is that when an Advanced Custom Study Control Bar button is enabled, internally invert a boolean state variable in your custom study that the button is associated with, to remember the current state. After that disable the button so that it is no longer in an on and pushed in-state.

After this, change the text or the background color of the Control Bar button to indicate the current state (whether on or off).

Disabling Previously Selected Advanced Custom Study Control Bar Button

With version 2268 and higher, it is supported that multiple Advanced Custom Study Control Bar buttons can be active or in an On state at the same time.

Use the code below in your custom study function to use the old behavior to only support one button active or on at the same time.

if (sc.MenuEventID >= ACS_BUTTON_1 && sc.MenuEventID <= ACS_BUTTON_150)
{
    sc.SetCustomStudyControlBarButtonEnable(sc.PriorSelectedCustomStudyControlBarButtonNumber, 0);

}