Tool Documentation Popup
Attach a second indicator alongside whatever tool you are actually using, and it gives you a one-click reminder of what that tool's inputs mean or how it is meant to be used, without alt-tabbing to a browser or hunting down a saved copy of its CodeBase page. MQL4 has no built-in message-box function without importing user32.dll - a real DLL import, which this catalogue's house style forbids outright. So the "popup" here is a chart panel built entirely from native chart objects: a background rectangle and a stack of OBJ_LABEL rows, created only while the panel is open and fully removed the instant it is closed, so it never sits on top of price action when you are not actively reading it. Documentation text comes from a plain file in MQL4\Files\ (or MQL5\Files\ on the native MQL5 build) - copy any catalogue tool's own .txt submission file there, point InpDocFileName at it, and its contents are shown verbatim, line by line, with Up/Down paging once the text is longer than one screen. If the named file is not found, a short fallback message (edited via InpFallbackText, using "|" as a manual line-break marker since an MT4 input dialog cannot hold a real newline character) is shown instead, so the tool never opens to a blank, silent panel. Notes and limitations - Text is not word-wrapped. Lines longer than InpPanelWidth simply run past the visible panel edge rather than wrapping to a second line. The catalogue's own .txt files are already hand-wrapped to a reasonable width for this reason; a source file with very long unwrapped lines will look cut off. - This indicator only displays a file's text - it has no way to read another running indicator's actual input values, state, or identity. It is a documentation viewer, not an introspection tool: you choose which file to show via InpDocFileName, it does not discover this automatically from whatever else is attached to the chart. - File reads are sandboxed to MQL4\Files\ (or MQL5\Files\ on the native MQL5 build) (and MQL4\Files\ (or MQL5\Files\ on the native MQL5 build)Common\ if FILE_COMMON were used, which this tool does not). It cannot read a file from anywhere else on disk, including the actual CodeBase submission folder structure this catalogue uses during development. - Reopening the panel always re-reads the file from disk, so a stale cached copy is never shown - but this also means a very large file is re-read on every open, which is fine for a documentation-sized text file but not intended for large data files.
Indicator · MT4 · v1.0 · Free
About Tool Documentation Popup
Tool Documentation Popup is an indicator for MetaTrader 4. It has 13 settings, such as Doc file name, Button text and Corner. MQL source code included.
Files in the download: ToolDocumentationPopup.mq4, ToolDocumentationPopup.txt.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Doc file name | ToolDocumentationPopup.txt | File in MQL4\Files\ to load and display verbatim |
| Button text | Docs | Text on the toggle button |
| Corner | CORNER_LEFT_UPPER | Panel corner |
| X offset | 10 | Horizontal offset from the corner, pixels |
| Y offset | 20 | Vertical offset from the corner, pixels |
| Panel width | 480 | Panel width, pixels |
| Max visible lines | 22 | Lines shown at once before Up/Down paging is needed |
| Max total lines | 500 | Safety cap on lines read from the file |
| Font size | 9 | Font size for documentation text |
| Text color | clrGainsboro | Documentation text colour |
| Button color | clrWhite | Button text colour |
| Button bg color | C'40,40,90' | Button background colour |
| Panel bg color | C'20,20,20' | Panel background colour |
How to install
- Download the ZIP from your PolyMaria library and unzip it.
- In MetaTrader 4 open File → Open Data Folder, then go to MQL4 → Indicators.
- Copy the .mq4 file(s) there. Put any .mqh files in MQL4 → Include.
- Open the .mq4 file in MetaEditor and press Compile (F7) if MetaTrader does not show it.
- Drag the indicator from the Navigator onto a chart and adjust the settings.
Tags: MT4 Indicator · MQL4 Source Code