Metatrader 4 Toolbars

As noted in my Forex Trading Blog, here is my new Blog all about Metatrader 4, for beginners. Comments are most welcome.

So you have opened a demo account and you have downloaded Metatrader 4. What's next? Start trading! But before you can do that you need to create your first chart. Here are the steps.

1. Select New Chart from the tool bar or from the File drop down menu.
2. Choose the currency pair from the list shown. The one hour (H1) chart will be shown by default.
3. Click the Candlestick to display chart in candlestick.




4. Right click anywhere in the chart and select Properties from the dropdown menu. You can change the colours and other settings for the chart to suit your liking.

5. You can add objects and technical indicators to your chart.
6. Save your chart as a new Profile with a unique name or it will take the Default name.

To make it easier for you, below are description of the various toolbars of Metatrader 4.

There are 3 main toolbar groups so I’ll just name them as Windows, Charts and Objects for easy reference and refer to each individual tool by an initial and a number thus W1, C2, O3, etc. in order of their appearance in the toolbar.

W1 – New Chart. Use this to create a new chart. Click on this and a list of 6 major currency pairs will appear with some additional pairs under MiniForex. The number of additional currency pairs differs from demo account to live accounts. Click on the pair you want and a new chart will appear in a new window.
W2 – Profiles. A profile is a chart with all its objects and indicators or a collection of several charts. The Default profile will load the first time MT4 is opened and any changes made will be saved as the Default profile and open the next time unless you save the changes with a new Profile name. You can create and remove profiles as you wish and switch to any Profile saved but the Default Profile cannot be deleted.
W3 – Market Watch. Click on this and the list of currency pairs available with the bid and ask prices will appear in a vertical window on the left. Double click on any currency pair and the Order window will open.
W4 – Data Window. Click on this and a window will appear on the left. Move your cursor to any candle in a chart and all the data available of the candle will appear.
W5 – Navigator. Click on this a window will appear on the left. Here you can select your account, indicators (technical), custom indicators, expert advisor and the scripts to be run.
W6 – Terminal. Click on this and a new window will appear at the bottom. Here you see your trade, the account history, news, mailbox, etc.
W7 – Click on this and a new window will appear at the bottom. This is for testing the Expert Advisors.
W8 – New Order. Click on this, the Order window will appear, just like pressing F9. The currency pair shown will be the one in the current active chart.
W9 – Meta Editor. This will open a new window to edit, Expert Advisors, custom indicators and scripts. For programmers only.
W10 – Expert Advisors. Click on this to enable or disable the Expert Advisors.

Opened windows can be closed by clicking the close window icon, i.e. the x.

Charts Toolbar

C1 – Bar Chart
C2 – Candlestick Chart
C3 – Line Chart
Click on any of these will change the type of the active chart.
C4 – Zoom In
C5 – Zoom Out
Click to zoom in or zoom out the chart as desired, there are 5 levels of Zoom.
C6 – Auto Scroll. If selected, the latest bar will always be shown on the screen. To see older bars, deselect this.
C7 – Chart Shift. Select this to shift the chart to the shift label (a small grey triangle in the upper part of the window).
C8 – Indicators. You can click this to select any indicators instead of using the Navigator window.
C9 – Periods. You can select the period of the active chart from 1 minute (M1) to Monthly (MN). You can also do this by clicking on the Period Toolbar.
C10 – Templates. Click on this to load, save or delete templates as desired.

Items added to a chart are either Objects or Indicators. The Object Toolbars shows the tools available.


O1 – Cursor. This is the standard arrow cursor by default for selecting items.
O2 – Crosshair. Select Crosshair. Move to active chart window and select first point. Press and hold down left mouse button and move to second point. A line connecting the two points will be drawn and the data between the two points will be shown as number of bars/number of pips/price at the second point. Release the left mouse button and all will disappear.
O3 – Vertical Line. Select tool, place at desire position. To make changes, double click to select line and handles (two small white squares) will appear. You can drag to new position or right click near line to access line properties to make changes. Double click after making changes to remove handles. For placing line at a particular time.
O4 – Horizontal Line. Same as above but for drawing horizontal line. Usually for drawing Support and Resistance levels.
O5 – Trendline. For drawing a slanting or trend line. Select tool. Place at first point, hold down left mouse button and select second point for the line. Trend line will snap to nearest point. To check if proper point is selected, double click to show the handles. There will be three handles, the middle one can be dragged to move the whole line while the handles at the two ends are attached to the ends of candles and they can be moved so that they snap and attached automatically at the ends of a candle.
O6 – Equidistant Channels. The usage is almost the same as O5 drawing the Trendline except that a second line is drawn parallel to the first line. Double click on the lines to select it and shows the handles. There will be three for the initial line (just like the Trendline above) and one handle for the second parallel line. Drag this handle by holding down the left mouse button and snap it to the desired extreme point and you will have a channel.
O7 – Fibonacci Retracement. Click on this tool and select the first point. Hold down the left mouse button and select the second point. It will snap into position and the Fibonacci retracement lines will be drawn. Select the main line and there will be three handles just like the trendlines and you can make similar adjustment by dragging the handles.
O8 – Text. Select this tool and you can place text anywhere in the active chart. This is attached to the chart and will move with the chart.
O9 – Text Label. Select this tool and you can put a label anywhere in the active window. This is attached to the window and will not move when the chart is scrolled.
O10 – Arrows. Select this to inset not just arrows but other graphical signs in the charts.

Finally there is the Period Toolbar which you click to select the timeframe from one minute (M1) to monthly (MN).

I think this is sufficient to get you moving. In my later posts I will give more details of some of the functions. Or better still, you may ask any questions on Metatrader 4 so that I can answer (wherever possible) in my posts. Happy trading.

Ronald Kwok
http://ronaldkwok.atomicblog.hop.clickbank.net/