Losing my mind over templates & cross-chart trendlines

[bacorreo]

Hi everyone,
I recently decided to buy the Order Flow edition of MotiveWave and I’m absolutely loving it so far—but there’s one thing I just can’t figure out, and I think only you might be able to help me.

Really struggling with templates and cross-chart trendlines


screen 1.jpg – I have three charts: one D1 and two M5.
On the D1 chart I placed a few random moving averages and saved that as template “D1”.
On the first M5 I have a TPO and session Volume Profile, saved as template “TPO”.
On the second M5 I have a Volume Imprint and VWAP, saved as template “Order Flow”.


I linked all three charts together so when I change a ticker in the watchlist every chart updates perfectly. Great so far.


Now comes my wild dream: I would like to draw a trendline on the D1 and have it visible on the M5 charts.
I know this is not as simple as in many other platforms—I have already read dozens of forum posts on the subject.


screen 2.jpg – I add a new chart on D1, enable “Primary Analysis” and check “Inherit Settings” so the moving averages from my D1 template appear automatically.
Of course, they do not appear. Fine, I think, I will just apply the template afterward.


screen 3.jpg – Let’s test this on a single M5 chart: I add Primary Analysis and draw a trendline to see if it syncs. It works! Half the battle won.


Next step: re-apply the templates on both “Primary Analysis” layers.
I add my D1 template (with moving averages) on the D1 chart and… those averages also show up on the M5 (screen 4.jpg).
This basically means templates are not acting like templates.


Yes, I know I can go into the Object Editor and change Visibility for every single item, but doing that for every symbol and every moving average takes a huge amount of time.


So my questions are:

• Is manually adjusting visibility for each study really the only option?
• Is there any setting like “template visibility on [specific chart]” that I’m missing?
• How do you deal with this in practice?

The software is absolutely brilliant, but limitations like this make me spend hours configuring instead of actually trading.


Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Donovan2580]

Hi everyone,
I recently decided to buy the Order Flow edition of MotiveWave and I’m absolutely loving it so far—but there’s one thing I just can’t figure out, and I think only you might be able to help me.

Really struggling with templates and cross-chart trendlines


screen 1.jpg – I have three charts: one D1 and two M5.
On the D1 chart I placed a few random moving averages and saved that as template “D1”.
On the first M5 I have a TPO and session Volume Profile, saved as template “TPO”.
On the second M5 I have a Volume Imprint and VWAP, saved as template “Order Flow”.


I linked all three charts together so when I change a ticker in the watchlist every chart updates perfectly. Great so far.


Now comes my wild dream: I would like to draw a trendline on the D1 and have it visible on the M5 charts.
I know this is not as simple as in many other platforms—I have already read dozens of forum posts on the subject.


screen 2.jpg – I add a new chart on D1, enable “Primary Analysis” and check “Inherit Settings” so the moving averages from my D1 template appear automatically.
Of course, they do not appear. Fine, I think, I will just apply the template afterward.


screen 3.jpg – Let’s test this on a single M5 chart: I add Primary Analysis and draw a trendline to see if it syncs. It works! Half the battle won.


Next step: re-apply the templates on both “Primary Analysis” layers.
I add my D1 template (with moving averages) on the D1 chart and… those averages also show up on the M5 (screen 4.jpg).
This basically means templates are not acting like templates.


Yes, I know I can go into the Object Editor and change Visibility for every single item, but doing that for every symbol and every moving average takes a huge amount of time.


So my questions are:

• Is manually adjusting visibility for each study really the only option?
• Is there any setting like “template visibility on [specific chart]” that I’m missing?
• How do you deal with this in practice?

The software is absolutely brilliant, but limitations like this make me spend hours configuring instead of actually trading.


Thanks in advance for any advice!

So templates only apply studies, chart settings, etc. - They do not include drawings like trendlines.

Analysis' are what handle the drawings. Two totally different things (It is a bit clunky / counter-intuitive).

The good news is on MW7 (I think the stable release is due to be released any day now) you can apply an "analysis" to multiple charts.

So let's say you have trendlines, support and resistance zones, etc. drawn on a chart - You can save those as an analysis and then apply that analysis file to a totally different chart.

I am guessing this is going to solve the problems you are running into?

Also just a heads up - Any workspace that was created in MW 6.9 that open with MW7 will be essentially ruined from being able to roll backwards (To MW 6.9). Just make sure to save anything (File > Backup) that you have done in MW6 and set it aside, just in case you do not like MW7 and want to go back

 

[bacorreo]

So templates only apply studies, chart settings, etc. - They do not include drawings like trendlines.

Analysis' are what handle the drawings. Two totally different things (It is a bit clunky / counter-intuitive).

The good news is on MW7 (I think the stable release is due to be released any day now) you can apply an "analysis" to multiple charts.

So let's say you have trendlines, support and resistance zones, etc. drawn on a chart - You can save those as an analysis and then apply that analysis file to a totally different chart.

I am guessing this is going to solve the problems you are running into?

Also just a heads up - Any workspace that was created in MW 6.9 that open with MW7 will be essentially ruined from being able to roll backwards (To MW 6.9). Just make sure to save anything (File > Backup) that you have done in MW6 and set it aside, just in case you do not like MW7 and want to go back

Thanks for the quick answer!
Yes, I’m aware that templates don’t save drawings—that part is logical.

The issue I’m running into is a bit more specific: I want to have drawings and my indicators on the same chart.


To simplify the example:
I have a few moving averages on a chart and I’d like to add a trendline that syncs between D1 and M5.
To make the drawings synchronize, I add a Primary Analysis to both the D1 and M5 charts.
The drawing sync works perfectly.

But here’s the problem:
when I try to quickly add my moving averages to these new “Primary Analysis” charts, I can’t just apply my template.
I have to manually add the MAs again for every symbol.


What I’d like to do is: since I need a separate chart with Primary Analysis to synchronize drawings, be able to apply my MA template to that chart with one click—but that doesn’t seem to work.


Not sure if I explained it clearly, but that’s the challenge I’m facing. Any tips would be much appreciated!

edit: Your note about MW7 letting you apply an analysis to multiple charts is interesting—I need to read more about that, because it might be exactly the answer I’m looking for.

 

[Donovan2580]

Oh okay - I think I understand. So this is more of an issue when you are changing symbols?? IE- You have your chart all set up for "QQQ" and you want to be able to keep everything exactly the same and look at "SPY" or any other symbol?

As the base level, is this what you are trying to do? I used to use Tradestation and I could have all kinds of stuff on my chart, just enter a new symbol and all of that stuff would remain; Just the symbol changed. Like that?

 

[bacorreo]

Exactly—that’s it.


I have three different templates for each chart (D1, M5, M5) and when I switch between tickers everything updates perfectly - this works 100% great.
I get that when I want to add any drawing (trend line for example), I have to add a Primary Analysis for each symbol. That part is still okay and understandable.

The problem starts when I want to add my templates inside that Primary Analysis as well.


The ideal workflow would be:
1. add a Primary Analysis,
2. draw the trendlines there,
3. apply my prepared templates on top, and be done.
But that does not seem to work, and I’m wondering how you deal with this??

If I only had a single study like one Volume Imprint per chart it wouldn’t be a big deal, but when I have, say, five moving averages, adding each one manually and adjusting visibility—just because I want to draw a single trendline—feels like a bit of a nightmare.

 

[Donovan2580]

I am a futures trader(ES & NQ), so I look at the same 2 or 3 symbols all of the time. Because of this, I am not all that familiar with the issues you are having... I'll try and help the best I can.

I have had to get creative and find workarounds for some of these quirks in MotiveWave.

Are you just trying to set up 10 or 15 charts, or will you be constantly scanning through 500 different symbols? If you are just trying to setup a somewhat minimal amount, I might have an idea for you.

I'm not sure if you have tried this, or if it will even help you - Just taking a stab.

Get 1 symbol (TSLA for example) laid out exactly how you want it and save that analysis as something other than "Primary" (File > Chart > Save As). Just call it "Test" for now.


Now export the analysis:


File > Chart > Export Analysis (Name it test and save it somewhere)

Next, you want to import that:

File > Chart > Import Analysis (Find the file you just saved)

You will be prompted for a symbol - Enter "AMZN" and under name just call it "test".

Now when you open an Amazon chart, you should have the ability to pick the "test" analysis from this box



Give that a shot and let me know if that helps at all... Even if it didn't, you'll have a new tool in your toolkit for later use

 

[bacorreo]

Thanks so much for taking the time to write all of that—I really appreciate it.
Unfortunately I trade U.S. stocks, so I never know which symbols will be on my watchlist on a given day
That makes it a bit harder to rely on a fixed set of analyses the way you described.

Still, I’m definitely going to experiment with the Save/Export/Import Analysis method you suggested.

Thanks again for sharing your workflow and for putting so much effort into helping me—it really means a lot!

 

[Donovan2580]

Thanks so much for taking the time to write all of that—I really appreciate it.
Unfortunately I trade U.S. stocks, so I never know which symbols will be on my watchlist on a given day
That makes it a bit harder to rely on a fixed set of analyses the way you described.

Still, I’m definitely going to experiment with the Save/Export/Import Analysis method you suggested.

Thanks again for sharing your workflow and for putting so much effort into helping me—it really means a lot!

I wish I was more of a help! Perhaps someone else can chime in with something I had not thought of.

I do think that this feature in MW7 might be useful for you.

 

[bacorreo]

No, come on - you helped a lot!
I just got the same email today, and this looks very interesting. The option is there in the menu, I just need to try it out a little to understand it better. This might actually be it!

 

[bacorreo]

All right, I heard back from MotiveWave support and they gave me almost the complete solution to my original issue.
The key is to combine Analysis + Visibility:

• Create one Analysis on a master chart (e.g. D1) with all the studies and drawings you need (MA, TPO, Volume Profile, etc.).
• For each study, set Visibility rules (=15, =5, etc.) so it appears only on the desired timeframes.
• Link your charts by Instrument (and Time if needed).

This already solves most of the problem—drawings and studies now stay in sync across charts and reload correctly.
I’m still clarifying one detail with them: how to handle two charts with the same timeframe (for example, two M5 charts) that need different studies.

I’ll share their answer once I get more information.