Testing EA Utilities and Running Demos

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Utilities seem to load as EA's and testing them from source code works fine if you test on live data. When back testing, they may not execute any trades and then closes after period has run through.

I have seen this with DEMO utilities that do allow trading (with manual intervention) but you cannot test them in the normal tester as they just run through the period and stops.

I also created a trade visualisation tool similar to Trading View and when loading on the market place as an EA, it fails the bot test as it never executes any trades through the tester and although I have not tried it yet, I suspect the bot may do something different if it is classified as an Utility.

Am I missing something and am I making sufficient sense in the question - that really being how does one allow potential clients to buy a non auto trading EA/Utility and run a successful demo of its features before the purchase

 
Anton Christiaan Lombard: Utilities seem to load as EA's and testing them from source code works fine if you test on live data. When back testing, they may not execute any trades and then closes after period has run through. I have seen this with DEMO utilities that do allow trading (with manual intervention) but you cannot test them in the normal tester as they just run through the period and stops. I also created a trade visualisation tool similar to Trading View and when loading on the market place as an EA, it fails the bot test as it never executes any trades through the tester and although I have not tried it yet, I suspect the bot may do something different if it is classified as an Utility. Am I missing something and am I making sufficient sense in the question - that really being how does one allow potential clients to buy a non auto trading EA/Utility and run a successful demo of its features before the purchase

When your program is a "Utility", then classify it as such when you upload it to the Market.


 

Warning! Never classify a true EA that trades automatically as a "Utility" as that will lead to a penalty and you could lose your "seller" status.

So, only classify tools and utilities, that do not trade automatically and only aids the trader, as "Utilities".

 
Fernando Carreiro #: Warning! Never classify a true EA that trades automatically as a "Utility" as that will lead to a penalty and you could lose your "seller" status. So, only classify tools and utilities, that do not trade automatically and only aids the trader, as "Utilities".

Thanks Fernando. That's what my guess was. But am I correct that you cannot really "demo" the functionality of a Utility as it is published on the market place. I tried a few existing ones and it does appear that you cannot really test the utility's interactive user part other than the initial input parameters

 
Anton Christiaan Lombard #: Thanks Fernando. That's what my guess was. But am I correct that you cannot really "demo" the functionality of a Utility as it is published on the market place. I tried a few existing ones and it does appear that you cannot really test the utility's interactive user part other than the initial input parameters

Since the Strategy Tester is unable to fully emulate the Chart Events, for most cases it will be impossible to evaluate a Utility from the demo download.

There are some work-rounds that can allow some chart events, like button clicks, to be detected in the Strategy Tester, but for more complex user interfaces, it may be difficult to accomplish.

 
Comments that do not relate to this topic, have been moved to "Off-topic posts".
 
Fernando Carreiro #: Since the Strategy Tester is unable to fully emulate the Chart Events, for most cases it will be impossible to evaluate a Utility from the demo download. There are some work-rounds that can allow some chart events, like button clicks, to be detected in the Strategy Tester, but for more complex user interfaces, it may be difficult to accomplish.

Greetings,

Is there a way to block those work-arounds? I wrote a utility which extracts some data, and its features are bound to buttons. [irrelevant information redacted], but if a user is able to play around with the buttons in the tester with a demo version, they won't be interested purchasing the full version. How to avoid that?

 
Janos Peter Bartucz #: Is there a way to block those work-arounds? I wrote a utility which extracts some data, and its features are bound to buttons. [irrelevant information redacted], but if a user is able to play around with the buttons in the tester with a demo version, they won't be interested purchasing the full version. How to avoid that?

It is only if you code the workarounds yourself in your program. The users themselves can't implement them.

 
Fernando Carreiro #: It is only if you code the workarounds yourself in your program. The users themselves can't implement them.

Thank you!

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