Sending MetaTrader Expert Advisor Alerts Through Skype
Summary
This document explains how to send status updates and alerts from a MetaTrader Expert Advisor through Skype. It distinguishes routine notifications, such as order changes or indicator events, from actionable messages about errors or a missing heartbeat that could signal a terminal or power failure. It outlines a macro-based approach using simulated keyboard and mouse actions, then focuses on a DLL that calls Skype's COM interface to send SMS messages or chats.
The implementation uses a dedicated thread for COM work and a custom message queue to coordinate requests from Expert Advisors. The article notes practical limits: SMS delivery costs money, invalid phone numbers may not produce a clear error, Skype versions and COM initialization can be unreliable, and receiving alerts requires an appropriate device or another Skype account. These are implementation notes for a legacy integration, not evidence that alerts improve trading performance; the article provides no strategy results or reliability measurements.
Key ideas
- Expert Advisors can send order, market, error, and periodic status notifications to a trader.
- The article favors Skype's COM interface over automating its interface with mouse and keyboard macros.
- A dedicated thread and message queue are used to handle COM requests from Expert Advisors.
- SMS costs, ambiguous delivery status, and occasional COM initialization failures limit reliability.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.