The MT4 Menu
The MetaTrader 4 Menu – A Complete Guide to the Main Buttons This is the second part of our guide to the Metatrader 4 platform for binary options. If you haven’t read the first part yet, you can start here:
👉 MetaTrader 4 Guide – Introduction and Installation
Menus and Buttons
Let’s begin by explaining the meaning of the buttons, starting with the most important ones, so you can start practicing right away, without reading the entire guide.
The arrows indicate the first buttons you should know about (from left to right):
- New Chart
- Navigator
- Candlestick, Bar, Line Chart
- Zoom In/Out
- Graphic Scrolling
- Formats
1. New graph
By clicking on this button you can choose the currency pairs to insert into the screen. Other pairs are found under Forex, Forex2, etc.
2. Indicators
In the scrolling window that opens, there are two items that interest us: • Indicators • Custom indicators The first refers to the list of indicators that are part of the MT4 package. The second contains the indicators we installed.
3. Candlestick, Bar, Line Chart
The most popular among traders is undoubtedly the candlestick chart. The bar chart provides essentially the same information, while the line chart can be useful for getting a general overview of the market trend.
4. Zoom in/out
It’s not really a magnifying glass. Instead, it allows you to view more (or fewer) candles in the same time frame, to better understand what happened in the past.
5. Graphic Scrolling
During the connection, the graph moves automatically following the market development. If we want to see the price history, we need to “unlock” the graph with the button on the left. The one on the right instead adjusts the distance between the last candle and the edge of the screen. In normal use, both are left pressed.
6. Formats
This important button is used to: • save the graph settings that we have possibly modified (new template) • recall a previous template (template list) • delete a graph setting If we have installed an indicator system containing a file named .tpl, we can easily recall it from this list, without having to manually intervene in the graph settings.
The MT4 Menu – Part 2
Let’s get to know other buttons that are located in another section of the menu.
- Cross
- Graphic tools
- Menu Move
- Time frame
7. Cross
By clicking on the button and moving the mouse over the graph (without clicking again) the cross is activated which, positioned at any point on the graph, provides various information such as: • Horizontal line: price level of the currency pair • Vertical line: date and time (hour, minute) It closes by clicking on the graph.
8. Graphic tools
The button gives access to various types of lines that can be drawn: • Vertical line • Horizontal line • Trendline
9. Menu movement
This small, almost invisible button allows you to move and arrange the different menu blocks according to the space available. One try is enough to understand the mechanism.
10. Time Frame
Choose your time frame here: • M1 one candle lasts 1 minute • M5 one candle lasts 5 minutes • M15 one candle lasts 15 minutes • M30 one candle lasts 30 minutes • H1 one candle lasts 1 hour • H4 one candle lasts 4 hours • D1 one candle lasts 1 day • W1 one candle lasts 1 week • MN one candle lasts 1 month
The MT4 Menu – Part 3
In this section we access two important parts of the menu: • Graphs • Window
11. Graphs
Here you can access, in addition to some of the functions already described, the contents of the Properties. We can choose from several types of ready-made graphs. If you are not satisfied with the default proposals (the three different ready-made settings can be accessed by clicking on Color Scheme, see the following image), you can always make changes. After making any changes, you need to save the chart (template). We can then recall it later from the menu, as explained previously in chapter “6. Formats”.
Ready-made graphics
It might be handy to have two ready-made settings that we use in our manuals. One with a white background and one with a black background. Simply copy the adjustments as they appear in the images below. So, if the initial appearance of the default graph isn’t right for you, let’s see how to customize it. So let’s click on Charts and then on Properties. The settings window appears, with two boxes to choose from: common colors
We won’t go into the meaning of each individual button: just do some simple tests to see the results. Instead we provide two ready-made settings. These are the ones we use most, but it will be easier to make any changes starting from these. One with a dark background and one with a light background.
Graph with light background
Graph with dark background
Both use Japanese candlesticks (which can easily be switched to bars or lines). You will notice that the background grid is no longer present. We don’t think it’s necessary and it’s been removed. Only the horizontal line of the current price remains. And now a useful gift for our trader friends:
Auto-Scroll Chart
By accessing these settings by clicking on ” common ” we can obtain a graph with automatic scrolling, and in combination with the black or white graphs, the absence of the background grid, which for some is rather annoying:
Always remember to save the template after making all the new settings, giving it a name to recognize it, for example “ white background graphic ” etc.
12. Window
A very useful function for viewing multiple charts at the same time, for example if a strategy requires us to check two or more different time frames at the same time. The most commonly used is “Tile Vertically”.