Hi wawa

A simple technique for identifying the first bar of a TRUE signal is to test for the current bar returning a TRUE and the previous bar returning a FALSE. This allows the leading edge of a signal that is TRUE for more than one bar to be identified and subsequent TRUE results ignored until the signal goes FALSE and then TRUE again. In effect a signal gets shortened to just one bar.

Signal=TRUE AND Ref(Signal,-1)=FALSE;

This can be written in a number of different ways and for brevity my preferred method is..

Signal AND Alert(Signal=0,2); or it could be shortened further to..
Signal*Alert(Signal=0,2);

Alert() is a function that requires caution when used in an exploration. It's use when sufficient bars are loaded is OK, but it can fail to extend a signal (the FALSE result is extended by one bar in my example) if the exploration loads insufficient data to generate a result for the full duration of the Alert.

What I'm saying is that Alert(Signal,10) will not force an exploration to load 10 or more data bars. On the other hand, Ref(Signal,-9) will force the exploration to load at least 10 data bars. In fact it would probably load 13 bars because the Explorer seems to add around 30% more data that what it estimates to be the minimum requirement. Alert() is one of several functions that the Explorer ignores when the bars-to-load calculation is performed. You're unlikely to have a problem if you set the Explorer to load 500 bars or so, but if you leave it set to Minimum Records you WILL have have problems at some point.

Roy