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Plug-in installation

To start the installation process download the latest plug-in and follow these steps:

First, open MT4 and make sure that you have enabled DLL imports. This is done in the Expert Advisors tab of the MT4’s Options window (you can press CTRL-O to bring up this window in MT4):

Make sure that you have enabled “Allow DLL imports” as presented on the screen above. “Allow automated trading” can also be enabled, but it is not required for the plug-in to work correctly.

When finished with the above, you’ll need to close MT4 and run the setup program for the downloaded software. When you run the setup program you will see a window similar to the following one:

After clicking [Next > ] and accepting the license agreement, you will need to select the installation folder where the Ultimate Renko plug-in files should be installed.

This needs to be your MT4 program folder (not the /experts, /experts/indicators, or any other sub-folder or data folder). The installed files will automatically be synchronized with your data folder, so manual file copying is not required.

The installation process will begin once you select the destination location, click [ OK ], and press [NEXT >].

Once the installation process is complete, you’ll need to activate the software using the “Activate.exe” utility. The activation process is described in the readme file on google drive.

Using the Ultimate Renko plug-in

To use the plug-in, first attach the UltimateRenko indicator to an M1 chart of an instrument of your choice (i.e. currency pair, index, etc.) and choose your desired settings.

Please note that Ultimate Renko will always process historical data from the chart’s timeframe it is loaded on to. The recommended timeframe is, of course, M1 as it will give you the highest accuracy of historical data, however, you are free to use it on any other timeframe.

In some cases, this can be desirable for example in situations where the “candle body size” parameter is relatively high (i.e. 25 pips or even higher) and you wish to see more history than you have available on your M1 chart.

Attaching the indicator to the chart can be done via dragging the indicator from the Navigator window’s Custom Indicators branch onto the chart with the selected timeframe or by double-clicking the indicator name (UltimateRenko on the picture below) in the Navigator window.

This action will bring up the following screen, where you can set the plug-in parameters:

The variables and the meaning of their values are described below.

• Candle body size in pips for FX (in points for others)
  This variable influences the renko brick size (candle body).

  

  For Forex symbols this simply means how many regular pips (from high to low) will each candle measure.

  When using the plug-in with Indices, Futures, etc., the body size value will reflect the number of points (from open to close) that each candle will measure. For example, a 200 point median bar chart of the DE30 index will output the following chart:

  
  

• Preset (sets 3 values below)
  This input will bring up a list box containing 5 of the most commonly used charts. These include:

  • Renko (Open offset = 0%, Reversal Open offset = 100%, Reversal bar size = 200%)
  • Median Renko (Open offset = 50%, Reversal Open offset = 50%, Reversal bar size = 150%)
  • PointO (Open offset = 0%, Reversal Open offset = 0%, Reversal bar size = 100%)
  • Turbo Renko (Open offset = 75%, Reversal Open offset = 25%, Reversal bar size = 125%)
  • Hybrid Renko (Open offset = 75%, Reversal Open offset = 75%, Reversal bar size = 175%)

  Seleting any of the above will automatically override the values in the next 3 inputs

  

  These include Open offset%, Reversal open offset%, and Reversal bar size%.

• Open offset % (0 to ..)
  This value sets the offset that should be applied to the new bar’s open price in relation to the previous bar’s closing price.

  

  The value is denoted in percent of the candle body size and will be applied in the direction shown by the small yellow arrow.

• Reversal Open offset % (0 to ..)

  This value sets the offset that should be applied to the new reversal bar’s open price in relation to the previous bar’s closing price.

  

  The value is denoted in percent of the candle body size and will be applied in the direction shown by the small yellow arrow.

• Reversal bar size % (0 to ..)

  This value sets the size of the reversal bar measured from the previous bar’s closing price.

  

  The value is denoted in percent of the candle body size and will be applied in the direction shown by the small yellow arrow.

• Show wicks

  This setting toggles On/Off the display of wicks on the renko charts.

• Display on
  This variable contains a list box with different offline timeframes where the output of the actual ultimate renko chart will be written. Remember that the time period value does not influence the size or duration of individual candles. It only identifies a unique “canvas chart”, which will be used to display live ultimate renko charts.

  Please note that if you want to set up several different renko charts for a single instrument, you must select a unique offline chart identifier for each one.

• Apply a template to offline chart

  You can use this value to automatically apply a template that you have saved in your MT4’s templates folder. You can use any name that is visible in the templates folder.

  

  The templates shown above are the ones that are available in MT4 by default (ADX, BollingerBands, Layers, Momentum, Popular, Volume, Williams), but you can create, save and use your own.

  If you choose to have a template automatically applied it will be visible on your renko chart (for example, if you choose “ADX” on a Median Renko chart you will see a chart similar to the one shown below).

  

• Automatically open offline chart

  Setting this to “True” will automatically open the renko chart as soon as it is ready. Conversely, you will need to click on the “Show chart” button.

  

• Build history for a number of days
  This variable defines the amount of historical data that should be processed from the history available on the anchor chart.
  

  A setting of “0” will result in using all available data on the selected anchor chart’s timeframe.

• Build history starting from date
  This setting overrides the value set in “Build history for a number of days” and lets you precisely define the chart’s anchor point via date & time of the first processed historical 1-minute bar.
  
• Truncate trailing digits on the first renko
  When “Truncate trailing digits on the first renko” is enabled the first renko bar’s opening price is truncated by the number of digits to truncate.

  If “Reset Open on each trading day” or “ATR beaded bar size calculation” is enabled, the procedure is applied to the opening price on each new day.

  For example, if we have 10 pip vanilla renko chart where the first candle’s open price is 1.40123 and we set:

  Truncate trailing digits on the first renko = true
  Number of digits to truncate                = 2

  The chart will open at 1.40100 level:

  1st bar -> open 1.40100, close 1.40200
  2nd bar -> open 1.40200, close 1.40300
  3rd bar -> open 1.40300, close 1.40400
  4th bar -> open 1.40400, close 1.40500
  ...
  etc.
  
  

• Reset Open on each trading day
  A parameter for ensuring the trading session’s consistency – The Open, High, Low & Close of each session matches the daily candle values.

  This is an optional feature, which ensures daily (or session) reference consistency and is used to reflect the true daily (or session) open, high, low, and close values. To use this feature, set Reset Open on each trading day to true.

  As a result, you may even see a gap between the previous session’s close and open of the current one as shown in the screenshot below.

  
  

• Recalculate chart on history updates
  This variable defines whether to update the renko chart when the terminal receives missing historical data for the used instrument. This is usually needed if you have a poor internet connection with your broker’s MT4 server, or your broker’s server has a lot of downtimes.
  
• Minimum chart update interval
  This setting is designed to lower CPU usage for manual traders, who don’t need to see the charts refresh on each tick (several times per second). The parameter offers the ability to set the throttle the refresh interval in milliseconds. The default value of “0” turns OFF this feature.
• == ATR based bar size calculation ==

  This section consists of 3 variables that automatically control the renko candle body size based on the percentage of the daily ATR value:

  • Enabled (true/false) – enables or disables the use of ATR to calculate candle body size
  • Daily ATR period – used for changing the default ATR period parameter (default value is set to 14)
  • Percentage of ATR (candle body size) – sets the percentage of the calculated ATR value to be used as the “candle body size” for the new trading day.
• == Alerts and Info ==

  This section is used to set up optional alerts and additional information that is displayed on the renko chart.

Once you set the values described above to the desired settings and press the [ OK ] button you will see the following comment in the lower part of the anchor chart:

Click the “Show chart” button to open the created renko chart. The “offline” chart will start displaying live price action as soon as new quotes are received by MT4 and new renko bars will be created as they are formed.

The “X” button is used to remove the UltimateRenko indicator from the chart (this will also close the associated offline chart).

Backtesting the Ultimate Renko charts

There is only one valid way of backtesting renko charts in MT4 and it has been described in a separate blog post: Backtesting using tick data (every tick is backtested and taken into account)

Updating the plug-in to the latest version

The plug-in(s) can be easily updated once new plug-in features or bug fixes are released.
To update your plug-in close your MT4 terminal and run the updater program via updateUltimateRenkoPlugin.bat

This will automatically check for newer versions, download the new files, and patch your existing plug-in installation. If you have multiple MT4 installations on your system, you should update all instances by using the updateUltimateRenkoPlugin.bat file, which is located in your MT4 installation folder.