Settings

This page treats every input as a decision with consequences. Each knob comes with what it does, what it costs, and what it hides when you move it. There is no "best" value for any setting here. There are defensible choices, and the defense is a case you have to build on your own instrument.

Two reading postures help before you dive in. First, expect to come back to this page many times. It is long on purpose — you are configuring a workbench tool, not picking a color theme. Second, change knobs one at a time and wait long enough for the pane to react before moving the next. The interactions between these controls are real, and the fastest way to get stuck is to change three things and lose the chain of cause and effect.

The inputs dialog is organized by group: Oscillator, Display, Master Smoothing, MA 01, MA 01 PU, and the same pair repeated through MA 10. Slots are identical in structure. This page documents slot 01 as the archetype and flags the per-slot default differences at the end.

Default tripwires to name before we walk the knobs

Before you touch anything, know the four places a default can quietly mislead you:

• Slots 1, 2, 3 are enabled; slots 4–10 are not. When you enable slot 4, nothing about the blend will shift until you raise its weight. Enable-with-no-weight is a common "why did nothing happen" pattern.

• Slots 1, 2, 3 ship with Blended Weight = 33.3. Slots 4–10 ship with Blended Weight = 0. Raising slot 4's weight dilutes the voice of the first three — not proportionally to your intuition, but proportionally to the normalization rule inside the blend. If you care about this, set weights deliberately rather than additively.

• Every slot's On Bar Close? defaults to ON. That is the honest repaint posture. Flipping it OFF is a real choice, with a real cost; see MTF & Repainting before you flip any of them.

• Slot timeframes default to 5m, 15m, 60m for the first three slots. On a 1m chart these are all above the chart timeframe and everything works as designed. On a chart at 60m or above, slot 01's 5m timeframe is below the chart TF and the script raises a named runtime error instead of drawing a lower-timeframe read into the pane.

Oscillator group — global knobs

ATR Length (int, default 14)

Defines the window used to compute ATR, which is the volatility scale every slot uses when it normalizes raw price-to-baseline distance. ATR Length is global — every slot shares it. Short ATR lengths make the normalization reactive; the pane snaps toward the boundaries during volatility expansions and relaxes quickly when the tape calms. Long ATR lengths smooth the scale; the pane is slower to respond to real volatility shifts and slower to come back to neutral after them.

What the tradeoff costs you: a short ATR makes the 30/70 references feel "right" on active bars and feel over-wide on quiet bars. A long ATR does the reverse. There is no setting that removes the tradeoff. There is only the setting that matches the timescale you are reading on.

What to do the first time: leave it at 14. Change it only if you have a concrete reason tied to your instrument's volatility behavior.

ATR Sensitivity (float, default 1.0, step 0.1)

Multiplies the normalized distance before it is pushed through the bounded 0..100 transformation. This is the dial that decides how hard the pane pushes toward the boundaries for a given move. Sensitivity below 1.0 flattens the pane; the reading spends more time near 50 and less time near the extremes. Sensitivity above 1.0 accelerates the reading toward 0 or 100 for the same raw stretch.

The trap on this knob is that it looks like a resolution dial and it is not. Raising sensitivity does not give you more information — it redistributes where the reading lives in the pane. Pushed far enough, values crowd near the edges for long stretches and different raw stretches become hard to distinguish there. That is not intensity. It is compression at the boundary.

What to do the first time: leave it at 1.0. Only audit it after you have spent real time reading the default. When you do audit, run the same chart section at 0.7, 1.0, and 1.3, and answer three questions. Did the lower setting buy you resolution in the middle of the pane where it was living, or did it flatten everything to 50 and hide the information? Did the higher setting buy you reach at the edges for real moves, or did it saturate the reading for long stretches where the old setting was informative? Which of the three has the 30/70 references doing useful work as landmarks instead of being ignored? Pick the setting that answers those three, not the one that looks prettiest.

Overbought Level (float, default 70) and Oversold Level (float, default 30)

These levels drive one thing: the position of the dashed gray reference lines in the pane. They do not affect the oscillator values, and no alert condition in this version reads them. There are no cross-the-level alerts in this script.

What the tradeoff costs you: widening the band (say, 20/80) makes the "stretched" zone rarer and more meaningful in a single look. Tightening the band (say, 40/60) makes "not stretched" rare and less informative. The band is a visual landmark; choose the width that gives you a landmark you can actually use without beginning to read the levels as triggers.

What to do the first time: leave them at 30 and 70.

Display group

Plot Blended Fast/Slow (bool, default true)

Shows the thicker blend fast line and the gray blend slow line. Turning this off leaves you with only the slot lines and the reference grid. If you are running a weight-zero-observer configuration where no slot actually contributes to a meaningful blend, hiding these two lines reduces clutter. In most configurations you leave this on.

Blended Line Width (int, default 3)

Thickness of both blended lines. The default keeps the blend visually dominant over slot lines at width 2. If you make slot lines wider for styling, keep the blend wider than the widest slot line to preserve the at-a-glance hierarchy.

Master Smoothing group

This block applies one extra MA pass to the blended fast and slow after the slots have already been combined. It does not touch slot lines. Its job is to stabilize the blend at the cost of lag. It is the last knob in the pack, not the first.

Enable Master Smoothing (bool, default false)

Off by default for a reason. A master smoothing pass on top of slots that are already smoothed will always add lag. The pane feels calmer, but regime flips arrive later. There is no master smoothing setting that adds stability without this cost.

Master MA Type (default EMA) and Master Length (int, default 3)

Chooses the family and window of the post-blend pass. At length 3 EMA, the master pass is close to a one-bar lag and mainly removes single-bar jitter. At length 10 or 20, it smears the blend and visibly delays color flips. The right answer is the length that gives you the kind of stability your workflow needs without letting the blend drift so far behind that you stop trusting it.

Master ALMA / KAMA / FRAMA / Jurik / Laguerre / VAMA parameters

Each of these sub-blocks exposes the Power User parameters for the corresponding family. They are only used when you have selected that family in Master MA Type. If Master MA Type is EMA, none of these parameters are read. See the Axiom Moving Average Library Pro manual for how each family behaves. The Pro library is the source of truth for those mechanics; this pack does not re-derive them.

What the tradeoff costs you: choosing a non-standard family on the master pass is a second layer of opinion added on top of the slot configuration. If you cannot name the reason you are using KAMA on the master pass rather than EMA, choose EMA.

Per-slot primary inputs (MA 01 through MA 10)

All ten slots expose the same seven primary inputs. Reading them in slot-lifecycle order — enable, source, timeframe, type, length, slow, weight — matches the order you will typically change them.

Enable MA 0N (bool; slots 1–3 default true, 4–10 default false)

The on-switch. A disabled slot does not compute, plot, or alert. Enabling a slot costs computation (one additional request.security call per slot) and costs cognitive load in the pane. Enable slots because you have a reason to look at them, not because they exist.

Hide MA 0N Plot (bool, default false)

The visual on/off. A hidden slot still computes. It still contributes to the blend if its weight is nonzero. Its alerts still fire. This is an intentional mode — you hide the line when the slot's job is to steer the blend quietly, not to read on its own — and it is also a foot-gun, because you cannot tell from the pane that the hidden slot is voting.

Source (series, default close)

The price input for the baseline MA and the fast reading on this slot. If the slot has an Optional Ticker set, the source is read from that ticker. Any series Pine allows as a source works here. Shifting from close to hl2 or hlc3 on a single slot is a subtle adjustment; shifting all ten slots to hlc3 is a pane-wide change that will move the zero-stretch point of every read. Do one slot at a time and notice what changed.

TimeFrame (string; per-slot defaults on 01/02/03 are 5, 15, 60; slots 04–10 default blank)

The timeframe this slot runs on. Blank means "chart timeframe." The tool enforces slot TF >= chart TF; if the slot TF is below the chart TF, the script raises a named runtime error that points to the offending slot. Equal to the chart timeframe is valid, but it is not higher-timeframe context. Combine this input with On Bar Close? in the Power User block before you decide this slot is behaving correctly.

Length (int, default 20 or 21) and Type (MaType enum, default EMA or SMA)

Length and family of the baseline MA on this slot. Longer baseline lengths move the zero-stretch point higher in structural terms — the slot reads stretch against a longer, slower reference. Shorter lengths increase sensitivity to local price action. The family changes the shape of the baseline in ways that matter; families like ALMA, KAMA, FRAMA, Jurik, Laguerre, and VAMA unlock corresponding Power User parameters. Use the MA family comparison table below to decide; when in doubt, EMA or SMA keeps the baseline legible.

Slow Length (int, default 3) and Slow Type (MaType enum, default EMA)

The smoothing applied on top of the fast read to produce the slow line on this slot. This is the line whose fast/slow relationship determines slot color. A short slow length (the default, 3) produces a reactive slow that flips frequently; a long slow length produces a slower regime read that flips less often and later. If Slow Type is a family with its own parameters, those parameters live in the slot's Power User block.

What the tradeoff costs you: short slows give you responsiveness and more false flips. Long slows give you regime clarity and later signals. This choice should be the conscious one you make on each slot, not the one the default happens to imply.

Line Width (int, default 2)

Plot thickness. Style only.

Blended Weight (float; slots 1–3 default 33.3, slots 4–10 default 0.0)

How much this slot steers the blend. Zero excludes the slot from the blend entirely while leaving it visible on the pane and active for alerts — that is the "observer slot" mode covered in Workflows. Positive values combine through a weights-normalized rule. You do not need to make them sum to 100 or to any particular number. What matters is the ratio. Slot 01 at 33.3 and slot 02 at 66.6 produces the same blend as slot 01 at 10 and slot 02 at 20: the blend is twice as sensitive to slot 02 as to slot 01. If you prefer to think in percentages, keep the weights summing to 100 so the blend matches the percentages you pictured; if you prefer to think in ratios, write them in as ratios and ignore the sum.

The subtle miss on this knob: raising a slot's weight does not "add" new information to the blend so much as it shifts the blend toward that slot and away from the others. Bringing slot 04 from 0 to 33.3 on top of equal weights on slots 1–3 reduces each of the first three slots' share by a quarter. If you care about keeping the first three slots' contribution intact while adding slot 04, you have to raise slot 04 and make an explicit choice about which of the others to reduce, not simply raise one weight and hope.

What to do the first time: leave the defaults. Once you have a reason to change, change one weight at a time and watch at least a full regime cycle before moving the next.

Optional Ticker (symbol, default blank)

Routes the slot's source, baseline MA, ATR, and slow computation to another symbol on the slot's timeframe. The chart symbol is not referenced inside this slot at all. That property is the slot's power and its sharpest edge — a cross-asset slot painted green is a statement about stretch on the ticker, not a statement about the chart. See the cross-asset section in Limitations & Trust Boundaries.

Per-slot Power User inputs (MA 0N PU)

These are the honest-but-technical controls. Most readers never need all of them. They become relevant when you change the baseline or slow type to a family that is parameter-driven, or when you need to override repaint posture on a specific slot.

On Bar Close? (bool, default true)

The repaint switch. ON waits for the higher-timeframe bar to close before reading the slot's value. OFF uses the live higher-timeframe value, which moves as the bar evolves and locks on close. OFF is explicitly repainting behavior on that slot. This page cannot teach this knob adequately. See MTF & Repainting before flipping it.

Baseline family parameters

If you set Type to a family that takes parameters, the corresponding Power User inputs take effect:

• ALMA: Baseline ALMA Floor Offset?, Baseline ALMA Offset, Baseline ALMA Sigma.

• KAMA and FRAMA: Baseline KAMA/FRAMA Fast, Baseline KAMA/FRAMA Slow.

• Jurik: Baseline Jurik Phase, Baseline Jurik Power.

• Laguerre: Baseline Laguerre Alpha.

• VAMA: Baseline VAMA Vol Length.

The same block repeats under Slow for the slow line when the Slow Type is a parameterized family. Internals for each family live in the Axiom Moving Average Library Pro manual. If you do not know what a family's parameters do, leave the baseline as EMA or SMA until you have read the library pack.

MA family comparison table

None of these families is strictly better than another. The only question the table answers is "which family's trade I am willing to accept on this slot."

Per-slot default differences

• Slots 01, 02, 03: Enable = true, Blended Weight = 33.3, timeframes 5/15/60 minutes, Length 20, EMA baseline, EMA slow length 3. Intended as a starting scaffold that teaches the pane rather than a tuned configuration for any specific instrument.

• Slots 04–10: Enable = false, Blended Weight = 0.0, blank timeframe, Length 21, SMA baseline, EMA slow length 3. Those defaults are scaffolding for first-enable behavior. Do not treat them as recommended configurations — the moment a slot matters to you, walk every primary input above as a deliberate choice.

If you enable a slot and cannot immediately explain what it adds over the already-enabled slots, close the dialog and come back after Workflows. The answer to "what is this slot here for" should be a sentence you can say out loud.

Decision map before you change anything

1. Do you actually want this slot enabled? If you cannot name what it adds, turn it off.

2. Do you have a reason to change source away from close? If yes, change one slot at a time.

3. Is the timeframe at or above the chart timeframe? Below is invalid and raises a runtime error; equal is allowed but removes higher-timeframe context.

4. Is the baseline length long enough to let price stretch meaningfully on this timeframe?

5. Is the slow length short enough to be useful and long enough to avoid flipping on every bar?

6. Does the weight you chose reflect how much this slot should steer the blend relative to the others?

7. If you flipped On Bar Close? OFF, can you name the reason in one sentence? If not, flip it back.

Where to go next

• Visuals and the mental model behind this many knobs: Visuals & Logic.

• Repaint contract and how MTF slots behave intrabar: MTF & Repainting.

• When you are ready to run actual configurations: Workflows.