🔧Set up indicator

This page shows you how to set up your environment for writing custom indicators in FTO. Think of it as laying out your pencils before sketching.

This guide shows you how to prepare your environment so you can start writing your own custom indicator for FTO.

To use the custom indicator API, you’ll first need an example to work from. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered — you can either browse a few ready-made examples here, or just grab the suggested starter file below. Think of it as your “Hello World” for indicators.

19MB

Moving Average.zip

archive

Why start with an example?

Jumping into custom indicators from scratch can feel like walking into a movie halfway through — you’ll miss the setup.

That’s why we suggest starting with a ready-made example:

• You see the basic structure in action

• You avoid silly mistakes on the first steps

• You can tweak and play instead of reinventing the wheel

It’s faster, safer, and way more fun. Once you’re comfortable, you can always build your own indicator logic from scratch.

Open and Set Things Up

Open the example project in Cursor (or any IDE you like — but honestly, Cursor makes life easier).

Next, click the little terminal icon (see Picture #1) — it’s that black box where all the behind-the-scenes magic happens.

Picture #1

Now run:

npm install

Once the dependencies are in place, it’s time to build your project.

Pop open your terminal (still in that same black box of magic) and run:

npm run build

This will compile your indicator into a nice, ready-to-use .js file.

Think of it as baking the dough you just mixed — after this step, you’ll actually have bread instead of just flour and water.

If everything goes well, you should see a fresh build appear in your dist folder. That’s your indicator, ready for action!

Sometimes Windows likes to be extra careful and won’t let you run scripts right away.

If you see an error like this:

cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system.
For more information, see about_Execution_Policies at
https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170. At line:1 char:1

Don’t panic — it’s just a security setting. You need to enter command Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser and then trynpm install and then npm run build command again.

After building, you’ll see a fresh file named my-indicator-project.js appear in your dist folder. That’s your ready-to-use indicator, hot and shiny.

Curious about the next step? Head over to the Upload Guide to learn how to bring your indicator into FTO and watch it in action on a chart.