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More or less the same I suppose. I use the regular MultiCharts now on a different pc just to plot some intraday charts, and the .NET version on the main pc for creating stuff.
But in regards to programming is PowerLanguage still something that I find easier and quicker than C#, but admittedly, lately I didn't had much time to study C#, so that didn't help either. Have you made the switch to the .NET version?
Thank you Jura. No, I have not (made the switch to .NET). I've been curious how .NET might be different, but it truly seems that for my purposes, MC is ideal.
I still do all of my trading (stock, ETF, options and some futures) on the ThinkorSwim (TOS) platform by TD Ameritrade (TDA). I have several accounts there, all linked, so it just makes sense.
I don't have much in the way of a data source for MC, so I rarely even open it. I currently have equity data only for MC, but since that data (via Open E-Cry) is not as abundant as what TDA / TOS provides, I don't gravitate to MC, and use TOS only, which is pretty dang good.
I got MC at a discounted price and don't regret it though. The back-testing capabilities was a driving force, and I hope to make time to test current equity / option strategies and refine them with MC. Looks like MC got Volume Profile finally, which is great. I like how the platform is evolving and hope to use it someday soon. I have a 1 and 3 year old, so this hasn't been a priority...
I remember some time ago Multicharts had an offer $1994.00 for Multicharts & Multicharts .NET bundle lifetime, which is $500 lower than the current website offer.
It's worthwhile asking them if they still have that offer. In the light of planned price increase, that offer seems more attactive now.
Since I've got this price increase stuff in my email from both MC and now through this forum due to subbing to the thread, I think I want to have my 2 cents on it.
And they are: Multicharts don't know much about marketing. Would have been better to just advertise the regular price and then advertise that there's an offer for limited time, rather than advertise the price x and then spam about raising the price by large %. That may be a fine approach in the US but I'm not in US and expect more clever marketing than that or it's just going to annoy me like the tone my posts will anyone who reads them (I write in annoyed tone when I'm annoyed, and I'm annoyed most of the time). The best marketing advise I can give is to set a regular price and have promotions that are irresistable - 75% off is a good one, but it needs to be very subtly and irregularly marketed like that so that it won't become an expectation and people won't go shouting out that "wait for X and it'll be 75% off", and ideally only price it like this for those who are otherwise lost cause - this might be harder to figure out but I pretty much told them what my offer is during a trial.
Now I don't even work in marketing but I'm a very reluctant customer and if it's free then it likely worthless, a very limited 75% off would on the other hand make it more of a "steal" and that's much more appealing assuming I think it might be worth something. Same could work for this forum as well. I'm tempted to see the "elite" section but it's hard to gauge what's in there. I know there's some Ninja indicators, but I don't use Ninja after hearing how buggy it is. I could use closer relations with traders and live chat and services (risk management) to avoid entering or being in trades at obviously (to more experience traders) bad times (I tend to see opportunity where there is none or where there is too high risk but don't have anyone to discuss it with).
In the end I decided to just code my own solution since all the solutions on the market are either too buggy or target a market in which they are too expensive, or use obscure language with poor debugger and so on.
The big issue with MC.NET from a C# dev (not professional) perspective was that it was not as simple as just making a change in code pressing a single key and getting the results, rather I had to attach VS to MC.NET and that's multi-step process, too much hassle for me. I'd rather have my strategy in it's own executable and use MC.NET as a library and visualization service.
I bot the bundle deal this weekend and as such I am glad they didn't charge more from the start and allowed the 5 month for me to realize what I wanted to do vs. buying NT lifetime license. The exposure to the software products I received here on futures.io (formerly BMT) was very important in helping me make my choice. Thanks Big Mike for your software presentations and various webinars from the various vendors.
If I understand you correctly, you buy products (whether it being a trading platform or an Elite membership) not based on the intrinsic value but based on the marketing quality? That seems a little odd to me, especially since marketing is most often just talk.
As you probably know, Mike's position with Elite memberships is that these are aimed at people who want to support the community regardless of the quality or quantity of the Elite Downloads. So it makes sense not to actively market or advertise this membership. And I'm glad for that, since that would probably turn must people off.
True, MC .NET is not as simple as processing a single key. But you don't need to use VS if you don't want too, unless you want to debug. But then again, every debugger for every software requires you to attach to the running process. So it's not extra hassle compared with other platforms (NT for example).
I also fail to see how coding your own platform/software would be more simple and less hassle than buying existing software (regardless it being MC, NT, SC or any other platform).
For the record previously a diehard NT user I bought the MC bundle last year some time after .Net was released and started using MC immediately, which meant converting my custom indicators from NT C# to PowerLanguage (which meant learning PowerLanguage). Recently I started using MC .Net almost exclusively, mainly for the programming flexibility (specifically want to read files and interface to C# DLLs) and am in the process of converting custom indicators to PowerLanguage .Net (MC .Net's version of C#/VB).
I found MC's documentation sparse compared to NT's documentation (mainly a dearth of examples) although there are enough EasyLanguage examples on the internet (including futures.io (formerly BMT)) that I was never at a total loss. Not having a TradeStation subscription makes some things harder than they need to be, like maintaining reasonably up-to-date versions of ELCollections and ADE. I'm finding MC .Net's documentation even more sparse.
I upgraded to the latest version of MC .Net when it became available (MultiCharts .NET64 Version 8.5 Beta 2/Build 6526) and was initially chagrined to discover not all built-in functions & indicators were compiled, moreover would not compile, and ended up deleting the offenders rather than messing with them. Trust things like that will be fixed in the next release.
On that note, while both MC .Net and NT insist on compiling all uncompiled sources in the functions/indicators/signals folders when you try to compile new source code, unlike NT MC .Net will compile new source code and allow you to use it even though other source code still has issues.
No other issues so far aside from a couple of minor quirks (e.g., occasionally a recompiled indicator will not update on the charts automatically, needs to be removed and installed).
Overall I prefer MC to NT as a trader because in my experience MC is significantly more stable and PowerLanguage does pretty much what a trader needs it to do, not that I haven't managed to crash MC from time to time. As a programmer developing bots and doing research into market behaviour however I also need .Net functionality and expect MC .Net to provide that while maintaining the stability.
Edited to add: BTW, on the topic of MC .Net documentation I arrived on this thread just now via a Google search while trying to find out what the MC .Net C# equivalents of the PowerLanguage (current bar) "Date" and "Time" functions are Turns out to be Bars.Time[].