Developing Custom Studies and Systems for Sierra Chart

Introduction

If you are developer desiring to develop custom studies, indicators or trading systems for an advanced charting and trading platform, for distribution to users for a cost or for free, then Sierra Chart is an excellent choice. Below is a list of reasons to choose Sierra Chart.

Reasons to Choose Sierra Chart

• We provide an easy to use Advanced Custom Study/System Interface And Language (ACSIL), with an abundance of advanced capabilities.
• C++ based coding language. This is an industry standard language which is supported across all operating systems. Sierra Chart's use of C++ is very simple. Only the basics are used, however you will have the advantage of working with a standard nonproprietary language.
• We provide a feature where you will have a web-based control panel to specify those users who are allowed to use your studies or systems. You can specify an expiration date as well. To have access to this control panel, request this feature and provide us the text you use in the SCDLLName function at the top of your source code file. Make this request and provide us the SCDLLName by starting an Account Support Ticket.
  
  For information about the code changes you need to make to support this feature, refer to the Redistributing and Allowing Use Only by a Defined List of Users.
  
  This feature also supports providing Chartbook, Study Collection and DLL files automatically to those users installations of Sierra Chart, who authorized to use your custom studies.
• We can list your website that you provide the studies or systems from, on our Other Sites Page. We can also make a posting about what you offer on our Support Board.
• Since the Sierra Chart Advanced Custom Study Interface and Language is based on C++, you are able to use the Microsoft Visual C++ development environment in addition to the editor and build system Sierra Chart provides. Visual C++ is available for free from Microsoft.
• Since you are working with C++, your compiled study or system is inherently protected and cannot be reverse engineered or decompiled. This is regardless of whether you use Visual C++ or the Sierra Chart provided compiler. There is no need to use any type of obfuscation tool. C++ is proven high performance code that is extremely fast. Working with C++ to create custom studies and systems is very easy for Sierra Chart.
• Develop fully automated trading systems with Sierra Chart. You have the ability to Backtest those systems and obtain reports. These systems can send orders to various supported trading services. For more information, refer to the Automated Trading From an Advanced Custom Study documentation page.
• The Sierra Chart ACSIL supports numerous Drawing Styles for study subgraphs. You are able to create custom bars derived from the underlying data in the chart. You are able to access all of the drawing tools to draw various lines, shapes, text, and other kinds of chart drawings on the chart.
• Sierra Chart is well respected and reliable software. We are in the business to provide top quality software that is up to date and properly supported.
• We support many backend data and trading platforms with more coming. We support all of the major platforms. And our integration to them is very complete and stable.
• Our Advanced Custom Study Interface and Language has support to read files from a Web server. This is useful for the following: 1. To develop your own custom authorization method for your study or system and restrict it to be used to a list of authorized users. 2. It also allows you to access custom data to be used by your custom study or system that you provide your customers. For example, you could have special price levels that you want to make available to them every day and now this can be automated. 3. You may want to alter the input or settings for your custom study/system and can have your custom study/system get these variables from your server.
  
  You only need to have a file on your server with the necessary data and have your custom study or system make the request for it. For a complete working example, refer to ACSIL Programming Concepts.
• If you do promote or list Sierra Chart on your website or are developing something for Sierra Chart for use among the public or your group, we can provide you complimentary access to Sierra Chart.
  
  Describe what you are doing in the area development, marketing or promotion by starting an Account Support Ticket. We should be able to provide you complimentary Sierra Chart usage time. The free usage time is given 2-3 months increments at a time.
• Sierra Chart is a very widely used and respected charting and trading platform, used around the world. We have a considerably large user base, that continues to grow. These are serious investors and traders who are paying customers.
• Sierra Chart is an excellent value with low-cost pricing. Sierra Chart is offered free through various brokerage/trading services. Pricing can be as little as $10/month per user. So there is very little cost that your customers will have to be able to use Sierra Chart.
• While Sierra Chart does not provide programming help, if you have basic technical questions that you need answers for, you can post on the Support Board.