It’s no surprise that there were times when technical analysts did not have computers to apply newly designed techniques to charts. Nowadays, we are able to create complex technical indicators and strategies using data one could not even imagine back in the time. Users of thinkorswim® platform are provided with a powerful and flexible tool called thinkScript® language. This embedded programming language allows you to add your own studies and strategies to more than 300 built-in ones (or even reference their values in your own scripts). What you are going to read here is a set of tutorials which will get you acquainted with this powerful tool.
These tutorials are not going to teach you how to trade, moreover, we presume that you already know how the charts are constructed and what, for example, the High, Low, Open and Close values are. The purpose of these tutorials is to describe the most useful tools of thinkScript®, should it be variables, functions, or plots – all of those will help you construct your perfect technical indicators.
To start scripting, you will need to open the Editor window: this is where you type your script which is checked and parsed by the application and, if everything is correct (we are sure it will be if you read these tutorials), added to chart as a study or strategy. In order to open the Editor:
1. Go to the Charts tab.
2. Click Studies in the upper right corner of the page.
3. Select Edit Studies. The Edit Studies and Strategies window will open.
4. Click Create... below the list of studies. This will open the Editor window with pre-defined script:
plot Data = close;
As one can figure out, this will plot the Close price for the specified symbol. Move on to chapter 2 where you will learn how to define variables and plot simple values like this one.