A great feature of Forex Tester 5 is the ability to install custom indicators.
This allows you to use trade journaling and analysis tools in Forex Tester while using the same indicators you use in live trading in MetaTrader.
This greatly speeds up the backtesting process.
Using MetaTrader alone as a manual backtesting software works, but is cumbersome and time consuming.
However, importing indicators into Forex Tester has some limitations.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add a custom MT4 indicator to Forex Tester 5 and explain why it’s not as useful as you might think.
If you prefer the text version of this tutorial, it is provided below the video.
How to add new indicators in Forex Tester 5
To add indicators to Forex Tester 5, House Click the tab in the upper left corner of the screen, then Indicator listafter that install a new indicator.
From there, a small window will pop up where you can install the indicator.
Click the button with the three dots to select the files to install.
There are two types of indicator files that can be added to FT5.
.dll files are the default file type for Forex Tester indicators.
The problem with this file type is that there are not many indicators available on the internet and it is not easy to find programmers who know how to create Forex Tester .dll indicators.
we have Some metrics availablebut there weren’t many requests for new ones.
A more practical file type is the .mq4 file.
This is the file used by MetaTrader 4.
But before I get excited about being able to import MetaTrader 4 indicators into Forex Tester, I have a few issues.
- Only .mq4 files can be imported, not .ex4 files
- Import works only if the Forex Tester server can perform the conversion
Most custom indicators sold on the internet are delivered in .ex4 format. This is because the vendor does not publish the source code or the “recipe” of how the indicator works.
Unfortunately, .ex4 indicators cannot be imported into Forex Tester 5.
However, if you have the .mq4 file, you can proceed.
After selecting the file to import, install button.
After selecting the MT4 indicator file to install, the software will ask you to confirm that it is okay to send the file to the Forex Tester server.
To convert the .mq4 file to .dll format, a program on the server must do the conversion and return the .dll file.
When the conversion is complete, you will see a message that the indicator has been installed.
that’s it!
If you want to buy Forex Tester 5 so that you can backtest with MetaTrader 4 indicators, be sure to get great discounts.
Advantages of Importing MT4 Indicators
The biggest advantage of being able to import MT4 indicators is that you can backtest your trading strategies using the same indicators that you use for live trading.
Converting indicators is free and very easy with the Forex Tester automatic conversion service. You don’t need to pay extra for programmers to convert your indicators.
Additionally, you will get tons of free indicators that you can import into Forex Tester. MT4 code base.
Drawbacks of Importing MT4 Indicators
I’m not interested in custom indicators, so I haven’t used this feature much, but I noticed that the Forex Tester conversion tool can’t convert all the indicators you upload.
In fact, the success rate seems to have been rather low. It usually works for simple metrics, but it’s hard to convert more complex ones.
To be fair, converting code between two different programming languages is not trivial, especially for automated programs.
But keep in mind that the conversion process may not work for all indicators.
What about decompiling .ex4 files?
Some people are under the impression that .ex4 files can be “decompiled” to get .mq4 files.
In all my years of trading, I have never seen anyone do that.
At some point I looked into it for several days. Many people thought it could be done, but I’ve never seen any proof.
So no time is wasted trying to figure out how to decompile .ex4 files.
If you can’t find the .mq4 file, go ahead.
final thoughts
that’s it!
Although this process is very simple and powerful, this method has its limitations.
Hopefully, the indicator import functionality will be extended to be more reliable and possibly include MT5 custom indicators as well.
Alright, let’s get backtesting!
Forex Tester is a great piece of software, but lately I prefer this backtesting software.