DYO: Tutorial

The Design Your Own (DYO) study feature can be used to implement Boolean logic and mathematical equations. The feature can be used to create and plot custom indicators, or show special visual effects. The variety and complexity of the things being created by customers with the DYO feature are truly amazing.

Add DYO to a Chart:

With a chart showing, click on the Study button and select Design Your Own on the drop down list. This adds a DYO study to the chart's collection of studies, alerts and draw tools.

DYO Property Form:

Press CTRL-O to show the Chart Object list. Double click on the Design Your Own entry on the list.

The DYO property form will be displayed so properties can be set. The following picture is an example.

Each part of the DYO Property form will be discussed.

Study Name:

Change the Study Name field to give your DYO a custom name. This name will show on the Chart Objects list and be used as the label in a sub-window. The Study Name can be up to 15 characters in length.

Study Location:

This selects the panel where the Markers and Labels will be displayed. In the Stochastic example the study lines are drawn in the 3rd sub-window.

Marker Location:

The Marker Location selection would be None to plot a curve at a value. This is the selection in the Stochastic example so that the study lines plot at the calculated values.

The other positions can be used to place markers on the chart or sub-window at a particular position, such as in rows along the Top or Bottom of the panel.

The selections of Last, Above High, Below Low, Open, and Midpoint will use that position on the chart's bar.

Study Scale:

Use the Study Scale selection to pick the scale that is appropriate for the data to be plotted.

Chart prices plotted on the chart would typically use Chart Scale. An example would be the plotting of a moving average study.

Data plotted in an existing sub-window would typically use the sub-window's scale.

The Data Set selection will determine the scale from the data by looking for the highest high and the lowest low value in the data set. This is a common selection for plotting studies from user created formulas.

The Fixed Range selection will show additional boxes to enter a custom scale.

Data 0 Centerline will balance the scale so zero plots at the center of the panel.

Data 50 Centerline will balance the scale so 50 plots at the center of the panel. This is the selection used in the Stochastic example because this study moves on both sides of 50 in a range with zero as the minimum value and 100 as the maximum value.

0 to Max Data will use zero as the scale low and determine scale high from the data set. This would be a good selection for plotting histogram bars for volume values.

The last four selections are similar to those described. The scale range is increased to create a 5 percent margin at both the top and bottom of the range.

Message Location:

Ensign Windows has a sub-window at the bottom of the chart that is divided into seven Sections. This area can be used to show messages, study and chart values.

The DYO can display a message in one of the seven Sections. Select None to disable the section feature.

Line Logic:

The Line Logic selection identifies which DYO Line controls the Section background color. When the Line Logic is True, the section background will use the True color. When the Line Logic is False, the background will be colored the False color. The message text will show in the Font color.

Line A through Line J can be a Boolean result that will control the Section color and the message is from the Message Text edit box. Example

Selections 'A & B Labels' through 'I & J Labels' will use the Boolean logic of the two lines as a pair. Which ever line of the pair was most recently True is the line whose label will be displayed in the Section as the message text. The Section background color will be the Line's Show color.

'A Label True' through 'J Label True' will show the label from these lines only when the Line evaluates to a true. When the Line is a False, nothing is done.

'A or B or Blank' through 'I or J or Blank' will show the Line's label when either Line evaluates to True and use the Line's Show color. When both lines are False, the Section is Blank and colored using the False color. Example

'A or B or C' through 'H or I or J' will will show the Line's label when one of the Lines evaluates to True and use the Line's Show color.

Message Text:

The Message Text can be shown in a Section at the bottom of a chart. Text to be shown on multiple lines is separated by a comma character. Example

The text can contain a message to show when the Line Logic is True and a message to show when the Line Logic is False. Separate the two messages with a vertical line character. Example

The example illustrates a 3 line message with insertions at the [..] reference tags.
[A] through [J] will insert the DYO's Line value. The example shows the value from Line A by using [A].

[0] through [255] will insert a Global Variable value. The example shows the value in Global Variable twenty by using [20].

Boolean flags will show 'True' or 'False'.

Formatting - Add a $ suffix to format the value as a price using the chart's scale. Add a ` character suffix to format the value as an integer. Examples: [A$] and [A`]

The ` character shares the key with the ~ tilda character. When ` is inside of the [ ] it changes the format to integer. When it follows the [ ] it adds the degree symbol to the string. Example: [A]`

Reference Tags - Chart and Bar values can be referenced and inserted in the Message Text, a Label, and used in the Number field to return a value. The Message Text example used [$S] to print the Chart's Symbol in the Section display. A short list of tags is shown here. Click the read more link to see the full list of tags.

[$S]	Chart symbol
[$O],[$H],[$L],[$C]	Bar Open, High, Low, Close
[$V],[$T]	Bar Volume, Tick Count
[$N],[$R]	Bar Net, Range
[$A],[$B]	Ask Volume, Bid Volume

read more » DYO: Reference Tags

Example Section display:

Edit Buttons:

Use the edit buttons to manage the DYO's Line A through Line J. The first step is to click on a line in the Category field. The line will be selected and the letter by this line will be changed to a darker color.

Click the Insert Line button to insert a blank line above the selected line.

Click the Delete Line button to delete the selected line.

The Swap Lines and Copy To buttons need two lines to be identified. Step one is to click on a line in the Category field. Step two is to click on a second line in the Category field.

Clicking the Swap Lines button will swap these two lines.

Clicking the Copy To button will copy the first line to the second line. The content of the second line will be lost. The content of the first line will remain unchanged.

Click the Reset Form button to return Line A through Line J to the None Category.

Line A through Line J:

Use the DYO Lines to implement logic and math operations. The lines will be evaluated in sequence from Line A through Line J. When more lines are needed to complete a design, simply add more DYO studies to the chart and continue the implementation.

Category:

Several thousand DYO statements have been grouped into 31 Categories. The first step to implementing a design is to select a category on a line, which then displays appropriate additional control boxes.

Bar Value - Values associated with individual bars on the chart can be read. Select the value to be returned in the Selection list which shows more than 80 choices. Many statements include that ability to add the value in the Number field, or multiply by the value in the Number field. The following example reads the bar's Close value, and adds the Number field value which is a negative of the bar's Low value. The calculation stored in Global Variable [1] is the bar's Close - Low.

Bar Flag - This category contains Boolean relationships between bars and their values. For example, the Selection list has 'Higher High' which will return a Boolean True when a bar's high is higher than the prior bar. The selection list has over 130 relationships that can be read as Boolean flags.

Study Value - The values from studies that are present on a chart ahead of the DYO on the chart's object list can be read. Select the Study from the Selection drop-down list. Select the particular study's value from the 3rd drop-down list. For example, you could select the 'Stochastic' study from the Selection list, and then select the '%D Value' from the 3rd list.

Study Flag - Studies that are placed on the chart will report a variety of conditions. These conditions are Boolean flags that can be used in an implementation. Select the Study from the Selection drop-down list. Select the desired Study Flag from the 3rd drop-down list. For example, you could select 'Stochastic' from the Selection list, and select '%D Rising' from the 3rd list.

The notation of 'X>' means 'cross above' and the Boolean flag would be True on a single bar as an event. The notation of '>' means 'greater than' and the Boolean flag is a relationship that could be True on several bars in sequence. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3

Notation	Meaning	Type
X>	Cross Above	Event
X<	Cross Below	Event
>, >=	Greater than, Greater than or equal to	Relationship
=, <>	Equal to, Not Equal	Relationship
<, <=	Less than, Less than or equal to	Relationship

Number - Use this category to read a value from the Number field.

Always True - This Line will always execute. Possibly it is showing a Marker. The following example shows a marker on Line D which requires 2 colors. The 1st color comes from the Color box on Line D and the 2nd color comes from the Color box on the next line, which is Line E. Line E used the Always True category as a place holder for the purpose of showing the 2nd color box.

Expression - This category offers over 60 mathematical expressions for adding, subtracting, mutiplying and dividing values typically stored in Global Variables or the Number field. This is an oft used category.

Value' will refer to the Global Variable (GV) at the location indicated by the Read GV spinner value.
'Next' will refer to the next GV in sequence. 'Value' and 'Next' are adjacent GVs.
'3rd' will refer to the third GV in sequence. 'Value', 'Next' and '3rd' are adjacent GVs.

'#' will refer to the value in the Number field.
'[#]' will refer to a set of values, where # is the size of the set and is the value in the Number field.
If [xx] is used in the Number field, then the value from the GV reference is used as the number.
Chart and bar values referenced by the [..] tags can be used in the Number field. Add a minus sign prefix to change the value to a negative number for subtraction.