How To Change CANDLE COLORS • Pine Script [OUTDATED V4] Tutorial

How To Change CANDLE COLORS • Pine Script [OUTDATED V4] Tutorial

hi traders this is Matthew from pine
script mastery comm and today I have a
lesson for you regarding bar colors so I
received a question from one of the
students in the pan script mastery
course regarding how to change the color
of bar wicks and borders so let's open
up the pine editor and I'll explain the
problem that he was facing so here we
are with the blank script I'm going to
call this script B SMC - bar wick and
border color then I'm going to set the
overlay to true so that this script
rolls over our price action chart I'm
gonna save the scripts and now we can
add it to our chart and we'll be
plotting the closing price to the child
so the problem with changing bar colors
in pan scripts is we do have access to
this bar color function and I could set
the color here for example to black if I
save these scripts it'll change all of
my bars to black but if i zoom right in
here probably really hard to see over
YouTube but the border color of each
candle is green and red so bullish
candles have a green border and bearish
candles have a red border and the wicks
are gray colored so the bar color
function if I hover my mouse over this
you can see the inputs it takes under
the word that says syntax there so it
takes a color input parameter an offset
parameter and an editable parameter a
show last parameter and a title
parameter but no border or wicked color
parameter which means that we cannot
change the bars wick or border color
using this function which begs the
question how then do we change the
candles border color or wood color so
today I'll show you a workaround for
this problem the best solution I found
was that instead of using the bar color
function we will use our own custom plot
candle function so this will plot a
custom candle to the chart and if you
notice down here at the bottom we have
our wick color and our border color
function parameters so this function
does allow us to change the wick color
and the border color but the problem
we're going to run into which I'll show
you in a second is that those colors
must be a constant variable which means
we cannot change them based on
conditions boolean conditions which is a
problem I'll show you why we put in our
open high low and closed price into this
plot candle function so that we're just
copying price action candles on our
chart now if we set the color to let's
say if the close is greater than the
open meaning it's a bullish candle
we'll use a conditional operator here a
question mark so we're saying if this
candle closed bullish then set the color
to color dark green otherwise set it to
colored red now this will compile and we
can't see it on our chart I'll have to
come up to the settings menu and turn
off our body's borders and wicks
settings in the settings settings menu
if I hit OK now we are drawing our
custom candles and they drawing green
when the price closes bullish and red
when it closes bearish but the problem
we now have is if we wanted to copy this
line of code and change the wick color
based on the same information now if I
save the script we're going to get an
error so you can see down here and the
reason we're getting an error is because
this color this wood color parameter
needs to be a constant variable meaning
that it never changes in our script so
if I were to change this back to say
color red and save these scripts it'll
compile without any issues and we now
have a red wick on every candle so what
if you wanted to change the wick color
and the border color of your candle
based on some sort of boolean condition
such as the candle closing bullish or
bearish well the only way that I could
think of to achieve this was to use to
plot candle functions one the plots the
data if the candle is bullish and one
that plots the data if the candle is
bearish both with different constant
wick color and border color variables so
I'll show you what I mean if we just
copy this entire line of code and paste
it below here and we can extract this
boolean condition here and then create a
new variable called bulk candle and
paste that in there so now this bull
candle variable will be set to true if
the closing price is higher than the
open price so there
will detect bullish candles and now
let's just remove these really quickly
before I move on to the next step so now
we have to plot candle functions that
are identical and what we're going to do
is we're only going to plot this one if
the candle is bullish and then we're
only going to plot this one if it's not
bullish and because we can't use if
statements with plots we need to use
conditional statements on the data
itself so what we can do here is say if
this was a bullish candle then plot the
open otherwise plot n/a or nothing and
we can do this for all of these candle
variables the open high low and close
and I'll drop this down to a new line so
that we can see what we're doing here we
can do the same for the second plot
candle so here we'll say was this a
bullish candle if so then we want to
plot n/a otherwise we want to plot the
open so this will put our bearish candle
data and this will plot our bullish
candle data so if we have bullish
candles we will plot the open high low
and close if we have a bearish candle
we'll put na na-na-na and this candle
function will plot nothing to the chart
and then this one on the other hand if
we have a bearish candle will plot open
high low and close so let's write that
out here and put that on a new line
change this to say green leave that as
red change this to say colored green and
color dot red and we can change many the
color of this to be lime a little bit
brighter green so now if I save these
scripts
notice that our bullish candles have
green wicks and our bearish candles have
red wicks and now if we wanted to change
the border color of these candles we can
just use the border color function
parameter so here if I say for bullish
candles we'll set the border to color
that lame as well and for bearish
candles we'll set the border color to
colored red so now if I saved these
scripts our border colors will be
changing the bright green and bright red
and the candles themselves will be
changing as well and let's change the
bearish candles to a darker red so that
we can actually see what's going on
there so now you can see we're plotting
a darker red here more of a purple color
and the wick and border is bright red
and we could change the wick separately
if we wanted to we could change this to
blue and this to orange and we can start
turning our charts into some sort of
children's painting but of course there
are many reasons why you might want to
use this functionality in your scripts
perhaps to detect certain candlestick
patterns perhaps you want to change the
color of the wicks based on how large
they are or small they are that sort of
thing and of course this is a bit of a
mess around because we have to turn off
our candles and normal candles on here
return these back on they will draw over
the top of our custom candles and only
when you hover your mouse over certain
areas on the chart with our custom
candles show up so it's not the ideal
solution for this problem but it's the
only solution I could think of given the
fact that what color and border color
require constant color variables so the
only workaround for this is to use n/a
for your price data in the plot candle
function and just separate your plot
candles to address each condition that
you want to in this case bullish candles
or bearish candles so that's it for this
lesson I hope you found that helpful if
you did and you want to learn more about
pine scripts head over to pine script
mastery com here you'll find my advanced
pine script courses and my basics course
which is free so if you want to learn
more about pine script head over here
and you'll find out a little bit more
about me and a little bit more about
pine scripts I hope you found this
lesson interesting and helpful I'll see
you in the next one
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