I have been working really hard on a system for a long time. First there are the limits to the number of variables which need to get worked around, and then the size limit for an indicator. I finally get it all conceptually refined and am able to create an "expert" and marvel at all the profitable trades. But I need to optimize this somewhat. Now, it would seem to me that the structure of an expert and a system for testing would be very similar, exept that you put "OPT1", OPT2", etc in place of some variables. So, I copy and... no, it will not paste because "Unable to paste clipboard contents because there is not enough space left in the formula." Thru experimenting, I find that it will take about 1/3 of the "GoLong" portion of my expert into the "Buy Order" section of the system tester. Now, can anybody tell me what use is a system tester that can't test your systems? Or am I missing something here? Why would the size limit be less than the max size of an indicator????? dc

Hi LongShot - I am the only one up here right now... so I ran and asked the question for ya. Hopefully this answer will make sense. Max values for Power Tools 7.22 and prior Max # of formulas per folder = 1000 Max # of characters in any one formula = 2500 (1024 in System Tester) Max # of characters in the name of a formula = 60 (70 in Enhanced System Tester) Max # of characters in the password for a formula = 19 8.0 and newer Max # of formulas per folder = 2000 Marilyn

Again, why a 1000 character limit for sections (one formula) in the system tester when the limit for an indicator (formula) or a section of an expert (single formula) is 2500??? Also, joetrade69, a "fml" call is useless, because what I ultimately need optimized is in the root definitions of my system, ie how the basic functions behave when restrained by rules defined later in the formula. Kinda like setting a course for a plane. You set a compass direction, altitude, air speed, and flight time to go from a to b. Now what I have put together are ways of accounting for wind direction, weather prediction to route around storms, and a few other bits. All this needs to be in place while I optimize the fundementals like air speed and direction to fit in with all the other suff I have developed. Another "feature" of Metastock is that you cannot use the optimizer variables (OPT1, OPT2, etc) in user defined indicators (formulas). This is to say that you cannot pass your variables to another funcion. What it seems to come down to is that I will need the Metastock SDK ($$$) to do some pretty ordinary things that I would have expected the software to be able to do from the get-go. This of course would include the learning curve, and still, the optimizer would be quite limited, and I would be gambling on whether this would work. dc

I guess it all boils down to the three questions I asked at the end of my original post. Yes, I'm a little angry discovering some (IMOP) shortcomings in a fairly pricey software package. I was not venting at Joetrade. I was using his question to illustrate my problem; actually his question was well to the point. If Metastock allowed passing variables to custom indicators, my problem would be largely solved. If Metastock had the consistency to allow the system tester to use the full size of any expert, this would also work. Patrick, I appreciate your offer to help, but I've worked on this for months to get to the point that I am at now: a working expert (fitted into the 2500 char limit) that needs to be optimized. Going over the formulae I am using with an expert Metastock programmer to condense it further, might get it from 2400 chars down to say 1500? I might also point out that my first post has 988 characters in it. That would fill one section on the system tester. And no, I am well aware of how over-optimizing works; this is necessary. From research I have done, I have an original concept that I can see works quite well. If anybody else is using it, they're not talking. I just do not know how to talk about it without revealing how it operates, and I'm not ready to do that. Over the weekend, I decided that I need to build my own optimizer using VB or Pascal, and feed its results to Metastock to produce the charts. Thanx dc PS this post goes over the 1000 char limit.

Has any one tried using tradesim for system testing in Metastock i was wondering if it was esier to use than system tester in metastock

That may be a solution; I'd have to look into it. As it is, the system is valuable enough to me that I have written a dedicated program to loop though all the variables. This, because it is dedicated to the one task (not associated with macro language support and other necessities of Metastock) is easily 100 times faster running than the System Tester. Thanx for the thought dc