I wouldn't want my comments above to scare anyone off ninja. I suspect some of my problems are related to one of the computers I am using, which has some weird issues. Plus. I've never tried to sort it out with ninja support, which seems to be first-rate. Bottom line, this is an excellent charting app, and it works great with the IB data feed. I loved QCharts and used it for years, but ninja is more powerful and more versatile, plus you not only get it for free but you don't have to pay the RT exchange data fees, which get very expensive for several commodities exchanges.
What happens when you your IB TWS or you computer looses connection, and with IB TWS happens alot, you need SierraCharts, as it will fill up your gap and keep you data intact. NT, even with products like CQG, cannot do it. One user used suggested an alternative for NT and kinetic for data then IB may be useful. You need to see what happens to your data when there is a disconnection. Be warned. See SC how stable it is and how well it does with situations like I described. BTW, I am moving away from IB because of their missing ticks, data, lost of connections. Perhaps they are cheaper but you pay the difference with all the above, and at the end it will cost you lots more.
You are correct, NinjaTrader will not backfill with IB when working with bars that are built from ticks. This is because IB does not support historical tick data.
The problem is that NinjaTrader builds all real time bars from tick data and doesn't backfill them with the correct backfill data from IB. I had to write a backfiller myself to correct this. Also: Why is there no support for Singapore dollar denominated contracts? Why is this so hard to add?
They aren't hard to add. However, committing to a MAS license which would require an office in Singapore is.
A broader question might be: what do you expect charts to do for you? or Do you believe that low-cost-off-the-shelf charting is the secret to wealth, that "they" don't want you to know?