Settings

Every knob in Axiom DC CTX belongs to one of three groups: the ten per-slot primary groups (DC 01 through DC 10), the Blended DC group, and the ten per-slot power-user groups (DC 01 PU through DC 10 PU). That is what the inputs dialog looks like. This page walks the knobs in a different order — slot lifecycle — because that is how you actually configure a slot when you are trying to answer a specific question.

Two things are worth stating up front so nothing on this page surprises you:

• Length: and Basis Trend Length: are two different lookbacks doing two different jobs. Length: is how far back the Donchian channel looks to find its highest high and lowest low. Basis Trend Length: is how far back the smoothed basis line is compared against itself to decide whether it is rising or falling. Do not conflate them. The basis-trend alerts and the blended basis-trend vote both run off Basis Trend Length:, not Length:.

• Only the basis is smoothed. The outer bounds are raw. Basis MA Length: and Type: affect the lime midpoint line only. The upper channel and the lower channel are raw Donchian — the highest high and the lowest low over Length:, no smoothing of any kind. If you double Basis MA Length: and expect the outer envelope to also calm down, you will be confused. It will not. That asymmetry is deliberate and structural.

With those two facts in hand, the rest is sequencing.

Per-slot primary inputs (slot lifecycle order)

Every slot exposes the same ten primary inputs, laid out on one inline row in the dialog. The order below is how you would walk them if you were setting up one slot from nothing.

1. Enable DC NN

• Type: boolean.

• Defaults: Slots 01, 02, 03 are ON. Slots 04 through 10 are OFF.

• What it changes: turns the slot on. A disabled slot computes nothing, draws nothing, contributes nothing to the blend, and counts for nothing in alignment alerts.

• When to change it: turn a slot on when you have a specific reason for that added timeframe or symbol. "Because it was available" is not a reason.

• Misuse risk: enabling extra slots without a reason crowds the chart and dilutes every slot's voice in the blend. If every slot is speaking at once, you are not reading ten slots — you are reading noise.

2. Hide DC NN Plot

• Type: boolean.

• Default: false.

• What it changes: suppresses the slot's three plotted lines so they disappear from the chart. The slot still runs. It still contributes its weight to the blend. It still participates in alignment alerts. The only thing hiding removes is the visual.

• When to change it: when the slot is useful in the blend or alerts but is cluttering the chart. There is also an alerts-only silent-slot pattern (enable + hidden + weight zero) that lives in Workflows.

• Misuse risk: this is the single most common misread of this indicator. A reader hides a slot to clean up the chart, leaves its weight at a non-zero value, and later wonders why the blended channel is moving when "no slot is moving." Read that sentence twice. Hiding removes the lines, not the voice. To remove a slot's voice, set its Blended Weight: to 0 or disable the slot outright.

3. TimeFrame:

• Type: timeframe string.

• Defaults: Slot 01 = "5", Slot 02 = "15", Slot 03 = "60". Slots 04 through 10 ship empty.

• What it changes: the higher timeframe the slot reads from. An empty string inherits the chart timeframe.

• When to change it: when you want explicit higher-timeframe context from this slot that is different from the chart.

• Misuse risk: the slot's timeframe must be equal to or higher than the chart timeframe. If you set a 1-minute slot timeframe while the chart is on 5-minute, the indicator fires a named runtime error: DC NN timeframe cannot be lower than the chart timeframe. The chart goes blank. The fix is one step: raise the slot to an equal-or-higher timeframe, or blank it to inherit the chart. This guard is by design; see MTF & Repainting for why.

4. Optional Ticker:

• Type: symbol string.

• Default: "" (empty).

• What it changes: the symbol the slot reads from. Empty inherits the chart symbol. Set to something like "QQQ" and the slot's Donchian is read on QQQ at the slot's timeframe, then rescaled into the chart symbol's price space so the lines land sensibly on the chart.

• When to change it: when you want a related market's range envelope visible on the chart symbol's price axis.

• Misuse risk: the rescaling is a single close-ratio at the slot's timeframe. It does not claim the other symbol predicts or leads the chart symbol. It is a scaled context sketch. If the two symbols have mismatched session calendars or very different volatility regimes, the scaling can look authoritative and be wrong. For the mental model behind the scaling, see For the Geeks. Pair any cross-ticker slot with Blended Weight: = 0 until you have deliberately decided you want the other symbol to steer your blend.

5. Length:

• Type: integer.

• Default: 20.

• What it changes: the Donchian lookback. Drives the upper channel (highest high over the last Length: bars at the slot's timeframe), the lower channel (lowest low), and the raw midpoint the basis is smoothed from.

• When to change it: when you want a tighter or wider channel on that slot. A longer length smooths swing visibility; a shorter length makes the slot reactive to fresh highs and lows.

• Misuse risk: Length: drives the raw outer bounds. No basis smoothing will hide a bad length. Push it very short and the upper/lower chase noise directly. Push it very long and the channel goes flat and stops representing anything local. Neither extreme is "better by default." If the outer envelope looks ragged while the basis looks clean, your Length: is the first place to look, not your basis smoothing.

6. Basis MA Length:

• Type: integer.

• Default: 1.

• What it changes: the smoothing length applied to the midpoint to form the basis line. At 1, there is no smoothing — the basis is the raw midpoint. Increase the length and the basis becomes a moving-average of the midpoint.

• When to change it: when you want a calmer basis line without changing the channel width.

• Misuse risk: readers expect this knob to also smooth the outer bounds. It does not. See the asymmetry callout at the top of this page.

7. Type:

• Type: maLib.MaType enumeration (the Axiom MA Pro library's MA type enum).

• Default: SMA.

• What it changes: the moving-average family used to smooth the midpoint into the basis.

• When to change it: when you want a different character on the basis curve — EMA for reactivity, HMA for a different lag profile, ALMA or Jurik or Laguerre or FRAMA or KAMA or VAMA if you are reaching for their specific behavior.

• Misuse risk: the semantics of the MA types themselves (what Jurik is doing, why KAMA adapts the way it does, what VAMA uses volume for) are the job of the Axiom MA Pro library manual, not this page. Set Type: to something other than SMA and the relevant power-user parameters in DC NN PU begin to matter — see §Power-user inputs below. The PU group itself is present either way.

8. Basis Trend Length:

• Type: integer ≥ 1.

• Default: 3.

• What it changes: the number of bars back the basis is compared against to decide whether it is at/above that past value or lower. Drives the per-slot basis-trend state, the per-slot basis-trend alerts, and the blended basis-trend vote.

• When to change it: shorter for a faster trend read, longer for a more deliberate one.

• Misuse risk: do not conflate with Length:. Setting Basis Trend Length: to 1 makes "uptrend" mean "at or above the previous basis value," which can flicker noisily and produce restless alerts. Longer values ask for more persistence before the basis-trend state changes.

9. Line Width: (primary row)

• Type: integer.

• Defaults: 2 on slots, 3 on the blended channel.

• What it changes: the thickness of the slot's three plotted lines.

• When to change it: readability. When you have several slots enabled, giving the slots you care about a thicker line and the context slots a thinner line helps your eye triage.

• Misuse risk: none. Cosmetic only.

10. Blended Weight:

This knob sits on the inline row next to Line Width::

• Blended Weight: — float. Defaults: 40 on Slot 01, 35 on Slot 02, 25 on Slot 03, 0 on Slots 04 through 10. Controls how much the slot steers the blended channel. A weight of zero keeps the slot's lines on the chart but removes its voice from the blend.

There is no separate basis-trend line-width input. Line Width: is the slot's thickness control, and it applies to the slot's upper, basis, and lower plots.

The blended channel divides accumulated band values by the total contributing weight. That is worth stating plainly: if three slots carry weights 40, 35, 25, their blend is (40·v1 + 35·v2 + 25·v3) / 100. If a fourth slot at weight 0 is also enabled, its v4 enters the sum with a 0 multiplier and the denominator is still 100 — the slot contributes nothing. If you change a fourth slot's weight from 0 to 20, the denominator becomes 120 and every slot's proportional voice drops.

The shipped 40 / 35 / 25 configuration biases the blend toward faster timeframes. That bias is a posture, not a recommendation. Saying "the defaults are optimized" would be dishonest — the defaults are there so the tool loads cleanly with something coherent on the chart. The moment you know what you want the blend to say, you should set the weights to reflect that.

A practical way to choose weights: imagine you had to explain to someone else why the blended basis is where it is on the chart right now. If your explanation reaches for one slot ("the 5m is dragging it up"), that slot's weight is probably where you trust the read. If the explanation feels like an accident of arithmetic, the weights are not reflecting what you actually care about, and the blend is not telling you about the market — it is telling you that your composite was underspecified.

Per-slot power-user inputs (DC NN PU)

Every slot also has a power-user group with the same ten inputs. Most of them are MA-family-specific and are only relevant when you change Type: — the remainder is the On Bar Close? switch, which belongs in this group because it is a behavior toggle rather than a numeric input.

A meta-note before the list: do not tune a PU parameter as a first move. The primary inputs (enable, hide, timeframe, ticker, length, basis MA length, MA type, trend length, line width, weight) are where 95% of useful configuration lives. PU parameters fine-tune the MA family's internal behavior, and tweaking them without first understanding the MA family tends to produce a basis curve that does not behave like a basis anymore. Change Type: first, watch how the basis responds, then open the PU group only if the curve's character is not what you wanted. Most readers will never change a PU parameter on purpose, and that is fine.

On Bar Close?

• Type: boolean.

• Default: true (ON) on every slot.

• What it changes: the slot's higher-timeframe reading posture. Under ON, the slot returns the previous, confirmed HTF bar's value — the line advances only when the HTF bar closes. Under OFF, the slot returns the current, live HTF bar's value, which can redraw on the current chart bar until the HTF bar closes.

• When to change it: read MTF & Repainting before you change it. OFF is a legitimate choice for specific cases. It is not simply faster — it is responsiveness paid for in repaint exposure, and historical/reloaded OFF bars should not be treated as proof of what was available live.

• Misuse risk: flipping OFF across the stack for speed is one of the clearest ways to hurt yourself with this tool. Named as an anti-pattern in Workflows.

ALMA parameters — ALMA Floor Offset?, ALMA Offset:, ALMA Sigma:

• Applies to: Type: ALMA.

• Defaults: floor offset false, offset 0.85, sigma 6.0.

• Role: shape the ALMA window used to smooth the midpoint into the basis.

• Misuse risk: pushed outside sensible ranges, the smoothed basis stops behaving like a basis. If you are not deliberately tuning ALMA, leave these alone.

KAMA / FRAMA — KAMA/FRAMA Fast:, KAMA/FRAMA Slow:

• Applies to: Type: KAMA or Type: FRAMA.

• Defaults: fast 2, slow 30.

• Role: the fast and slow lengths that the adaptive MA uses internally.

• Misuse risk: these two are paired. Changing one without considering the other distorts the adaptive responsiveness.

Jurik — Jurik Phase:, Jurik Power:

• Applies to: Type: Jurik.

• Defaults: phase 0, power 2.0.

• Role: Jurik's phase and power knobs.

• Misuse risk: extreme phase values introduce either lag or overshoot. The MA Pro library manual is the authority on how Jurik behaves here.

Laguerre — Laguerre Alpha:

• Applies to: Type: Laguerre.

• Default: 0.5.

• Role: the Laguerre smoothing alpha.

• Misuse risk: alpha near zero smooths into irrelevance. Alpha near one tracks noise directly.

VAMA — VAMA Vol Length:

• Applies to: Type: VAMA.

• Default: 20.

• Role: VAMA's volume lookback.

• Misuse risk: VAMA relies on meaningful per-bar volume. On instruments or chart feeds with degenerate volume data (thin FX pairs, index CFDs without aggregated volume, certain synthetic symbols), VAMA degrades.

Parameters for MA types the slot is not using are inert. Setting Jurik Phase while the slot is on SMA changes nothing until you switch to Jurik.

Blended DC group

Three knobs govern the composite overlay:

• Enable Blended DC — boolean. Default true. Turns the red upper, red lower, translucent fill, and lime basis on or off. With it off, you are reading slot-by-slot only — that is acceptable, but it should be a deliberate choice, not an accident.

• Hide Blended DC Plot — boolean. Default false. Suppresses the blended lines and fill while keeping the blended math (and the blended basis-trend alerts) running. Useful when you want blended alerts without the blended visuals, and otherwise rarely. Note the parallel with per-slot Hide DC NN Plot: hiding does not stop computation.

• Line Width: (blended) — integer. Default 3. Cosmetic thickness for the blended upper and lower lines.

Dependency and interaction map

A handful of rules connect the knobs across groups. Keep these in one place so you stop re-deriving them:

• Enable DC NN is a prerequisite for everything else on that slot. A disabled slot is silent across visuals, blend, and alerts.

• Hide DC NN Plot is visual only. It does not remove the slot from the blend or from alignment alerts.

• Blended Weight: = 0 keeps the slot's lines on the chart but removes its voice from the blended channel. This is the setting you want when you want a slot visible as context without letting it steer the composite.

• TimeFrame: must be equal to or higher than the chart timeframe. A lower setting fires the named runtime error.

• Type: on a slot decides which PU parameters are consumed. PU parameters for other MA types are inert until their type is selected.

• Optional Ticker: causes the slot's channel to be rescaled into the chart symbol's price space using a single HTF close ratio computed under the slot's On Bar Close? posture. A slot on OFF with an Optional Ticker: set will scale against a live HTF close on the alternate symbol.

• The blended basis-trend vote is weight-majority across enabled slots with non-na basis values. Ties resolve to uptrend. That tie-break is a deliberate convention — a reader cannot reason about the blended basis-trend alerts without knowing it.

• Only the basis is smoothed by Basis MA Length: and Type:. The outer bounds are raw. Always.

A note on the shipped defaults

The weights 40 / 35 / 25 on the 5m / 15m / 60m stack are what the tool loads with so the first thing you see is a coherent three-slot composite. They are not the "right" weights. They are not "optimized." They are not "tuned." Nobody ran a study that produced those numbers as winners. They are a load posture. The moment you know whether you care more about 15m or 60m context for the question you are asking, the weights should reflect that knowledge. Treating shipped defaults as somebody else's recommendation — in either direction — is how readers end up reading a composite they never actually chose.

Same note applies to Length: 20, Basis MA Length: 1, Type: SMA, and Basis Trend Length: 3. Twenty is a familiar Donchian length because it appears in enough textbooks to be a reasonable starting point, not because it is the "best" length for your instrument or your timeframe. One on Basis MA Length: is a no-smoothing pass-through so the basis on first load is visibly the raw midpoint — you have to opt in to smoothing by raising the number. Three on Basis Trend Length: is short enough that trend state changes visibly but long enough that it does not flicker at every bar. None of the four numbers is load-bearing; they are there so nothing on the chart is a surprise on first load.