MB Trading Custom Plugin

This is a technical question for a developer.

I note that MB's Desktop Pro, and maybe Desktop (aka Navigator) has charting studies under a Tools / Plugins menu option. These plugins have a GUID assigned to them, so they are Windows COM objects, no doubt.

Does anyone in this forum have information on writing a Custom Plugin.

So far, the folks at MB Trading's response has been "huh?" I had thought this would be a fully documented feature.

I'm really just trying to figure out whether I can use a Custom Plugin to do a bit more than a chart study, maybe do some socket comms, etc., if it's a COM object and can get position info, etc.

Thanks for any technical info!
Brent

 

I'm not sure of everything you're trying to do with MB...

you may want to checkout TradeLink as it supports MB trading, is 100% open source and free.

All the examples work the same on every broker, whether you are doing a strategy or a full trading application.

So it will probably be easier to learn, plus there are 200 people on the users list who can help you... including other MB trading users.

http://tradelink.googlecode.com

 

Thanks for the info.

However, MB Trading's API "consumes" a login, and thus (with only a single default login) disables concurrent logins from their platform Desktop (aka Navigator) or Desktop Pro.

This limit on concurrent logins has been an issue I've raised with them recently.

So, by using a scripting or plugin capability on their Desktop Pro platform, I would be able to accomplish certain limited objectives while the Desktop Pro platform was running.

This is what I want to do. In particular, I'd like to be able to get into some code so that I could do socket comms, etc with a local client process.

So, developers, anybody have an idea without using their API?

 

As an update on this issue, apparently MB Trading Desktop Pro uses a legacy plugin technology which is undocumented.

I am told they are developing something new, unspecified timeframe, which might support custom plugin development.

The major issue I have with MB Trading's approach is that their API consumes a login, and therefore an API client cannot co-exist with their Desktop; both cannot be running at the same time.

So some integration technology which communicates directly with a component of their desktop is what I have ask them for, and we shall see.

For now, my software client in Java calls out to a JNI-based DLL, and uses Windows system calls to send Hotkeys to the Desktop Pro environment. On the rare occasion when the BUY or SELL hotkey fails to execute, I close the feedback loop by repeatedly reading and parsing their execution file.

The Hotkey method is obviously fairly primitive, but so long as there is a hotkey to buy a fixed lot size, and one to sell a fixed lot size, then position size can be influenced by simply doing more of the fixed lot size.

By doing this, I can know the position in EUR/USD, for example, for the specific account, and can therefore take corrective action if necessary.

Thanks!

 

You can run both their Desktop app and your own at the same time on the same box. You just can't be logged into both of them with the same username. You can contact MBT and request a second username that's tied to your account. This will enable you to be signed in from both Desktop AND your application.