ChartObjectsCopyPaste – indicator MetaTrader 5

Have you ever needed to copy and paste some graphical objects between open charts? I think you have. Surprisingly, MetaTrader does not provide “Copy & Paste” feature for objects. The only thing that allows you to achieve more or less similar effect is templates (tpl-files). But the template stores the full chart state, including indicators, settings and a lot of auxiliary stuff, that may be irrelevant and unnecessary for required replication procedure.

That’s why I developed this indicator ChartObjectsCopyPaste.mq5. It copies selected objects to the clipboard, from where they can be pasted onto other chart(s). No strings attached.

The indicator is based on another indicator published in the algotrading book – ObjectGroupEdit.mq5.

Please follow the link to find out more about all the underlying classes (ObjectMonitor, MapArray and others) working behind the scenes.

This indicator has no buffers. It should be attached at least to 2 charts: source chart from which you want to copy objects, and target chart where you plan to paste them.

While running on a chart, indicator tracks existing graphical objects and makes notes about which ones are selected.

As usual “Copy & Paste” commands work in pair:

1. Press Ctrl+Q hotkey to copy all selected objects into Windows clipboard as a text (you can save and view it in any text editor, you can find an example below).
2. On a target chart press Ctrl+J to paste all objects from the clipboard.

Why Ctrl+Q/Ctrl+J? These are just 2 vacant key combinations voluntarily chosen from very few. This is because MetaTrader intercepts and does not propagate many hotkeys to MQL-programs. Particularly this is so for the standard Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V/Ctrl+Ins/Shift+Ins, which are not working in this context.

As the source code is available, you can change the hotkeys to other combinations.

Inputs are:

• MakeAllSelectable – flag to make all objects selectable (which is normally false for those objects created programmatically);
• LogDetails – flag to output all properties of transferred objects to the log;

The indicator does not check if pasted objects match actual target chart, such as symbol, price range, number of subwindows, etc. – you should do it yourself.

Here is an example of clipboard text with 2 objects:

OBJ_VLINE       H1 Vertical Line 5578   0       0
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_INTEGER
0       OBJPROP_COLOR   55295
1       OBJPROP_STYLE   2
2       OBJPROP_WIDTH   1
3       OBJPROP_BACK    0
4       OBJPROP_SELECTED        1
7       OBJPROP_TYPE    0
8       OBJPROP_TIME    1726739940
10      OBJPROP_SELECTABLE      1
11      OBJPROP_CREATETIME      1726847009
12      OBJPROP_TIMEFRAMES      2097151
200     OBJPROP_LEVELS  0
207     OBJPROP_ZORDER  0
208     OBJPROP_HIDDEN  0
1032    OBJPROP_RAY     1
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_DOUBLE
9       OBJPROP_PRICE   1.11449
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_STRING
5       OBJPROP_NAME    H1 Vertical Line 5578
6       OBJPROP_TEXT    
206     OBJPROP_TOOLTIP 
OBJ_CHANNEL     H1 Equidistant Channel 40885    5       1
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_INTEGER
0       OBJPROP_COLOR   255
1       OBJPROP_STYLE   0
2       OBJPROP_WIDTH   1
3       OBJPROP_BACK    0
4       OBJPROP_SELECTED        1
7       OBJPROP_TYPE    5
8       OBJPROP_TIME    1726758000
8       OBJPROP_TIME.1  1726797600
8       OBJPROP_TIME.2  1726758000
10      OBJPROP_SELECTABLE      1
11      OBJPROP_CREATETIME      1726847883
12      OBJPROP_TIMEFRAMES      2097151
200     OBJPROP_LEVELS  0
207     OBJPROP_ZORDER  0
208     OBJPROP_HIDDEN  0
1003    OBJPROP_RAY_LEFT        0
1004    OBJPROP_RAY_RIGHT       0
1031    OBJPROP_FILL    0
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_DOUBLE
9       OBJPROP_PRICE   -28.113879003558715
9       OBJPROP_PRICE.1 -21.708185053380777
9       OBJPROP_PRICE.2 -48.04270462633452
enum ENUM_OBJECT_PROPERTY_STRING
5       OBJPROP_NAME    H1 Equidistant Channel 40885
6       OBJPROP_TEXT    
206     OBJPROP_TOOLTIP 

And here are these objects pasted on the chart: