Custom OHLC bars and candles¶

You may create your own custom bars and candles in Pine scripts by using the plotbar and plotcandle annotation functions:

//@version=4
study("Example 1")
plotbar(open, high, low, close)

../_images/Custom_ohlc_bars_and_candles_1.png

Example 1 simply replicates bars of the current symbol. To color them green or red, we can use the following code:

//@version=4
study("Example 2")
palette = close >= open ? color.lime : color.red
plotbar(open, high, low, close, color=palette)

../_images/Custom_ohlc_bars_and_candles_2.png

Example 2 illustrates using the color argument, which can be given constant values such as red, lime, "#FF9090", as well as expressions that calculate colors conditionally at runtime (see the palette variable in the example above).

The plotcandle annotation function is similar to plotbar, but it plots candles instead of bars and has an optional argument: wickcolor.

Both plotbar and plotcandle need four series as the arguments that will be used for new bar/candle OHLC prices. If one of the arguments for a bar has a na value, then the bar is not plotted. Example:

//@version=4
study("Example 3")
c = close > open ? na : close
plotcandle(open, high, low, c)

../_images/Custom_ohlc_bars_and_candles_3.png

You can build bars or candles using values other than the actual OHLC values. For example you could calculate and plot smoothed candles using the following code:

//@version=4
study("Example 4")
len = input(9)
smooth(x) =>
    sma(x, len)
o = smooth(open)
h = smooth(high)
l = smooth(low)
c = smooth(close)
plotcandle(o, h, l, c)

../_images/Custom_ohlc_bars_and_candles_4.png

You may find it useful to plot OHLC values taken from a higher timeframe. You can, for example, plot daily bars on a 60 minutes chart:

// NOTE: add this script on intraday chart
//@version=4
study("Example 5")
higherRes = input("D", type=input.resolution)
is_newbar(res) =>
    t = time(res)
    not na(t) and (na(t[1]) or t > t[1])
o = security(syminfo.tickerid, higherRes, open)
h = security(syminfo.tickerid, higherRes, high)
l = security(syminfo.tickerid, higherRes, low)
c = security(syminfo.tickerid, higherRes, close)
plotbar(is_newbar(higherRes) ? o : na, h, l, c, color=c >= o ? color.lime : color.red)

../_images/Custom_ohlc_bars_and_candles_5.png

The plotbar and plotcandle annotation functions also have a title argument, so users can distinguish them in the Style tab of the Settings dialog box.

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Custom OHLC bars and candles¶