Chart — Types & Modes
The Chart Mode selector in the toolbar switches how price is drawn. Each mode tells a different story about the same data; switching is instant and keeps your symbol, timeframe, indicators and drawings.
/help-assets/chart/chart-modes-grid.pngPrice modes
Candlesticks
The default. Each bar shows the open, high, low and close as a body with wicks. Green/up and red/down bodies make momentum and ranges easy to read. Best all-round choice.
OHLC bars
The same open/high/low/close information drawn as bars (open tick left, close tick right) instead of candles. Cleaner when you want less visual weight.
Line
A single line connecting closing prices. Strips out intrabar noise — good for seeing the underlying trend and for clean screenshots.
Area
Like Line, but with the area filled below it. Emphasises the overall shape and level of price over fine detail.
Heiken Ashi
A smoothed candlestick built from averaged values. Consecutive same-colour candles make trends and pullbacks stand out, at the cost of showing the exact open/close of each period. Great for trend-following.
Order-flow & profile modes
Clusters (Footprint)
A volume footprint: each bar is broken into price levels showing the bid vs ask volume traded there. Reveals where buyers and sellers were active inside the bar — absorption, imbalances and point-of-control. The most detailed, microstructure-level view.
TPO (Market / Time-Price-Opportunity Profile)
Builds a profile of how much time price spent at each level, drawn as a distribution. Highlights value areas and the levels the market keeps returning to.
Footprint (Clusters) and TPO are richest on liquid instruments and shorter timeframes, where there's enough trade detail to populate each price level.
Tick-based modes
These build bars from trades, not the clock — so they use their own input instead of the timeframe (see Symbol & Timeframes).
Tick Number
A new bar every N trades (set the Tick Count). Activity controls bar speed: busy periods print many bars, quiet periods few.
Tick Range
A new bar each time price travels a set range. Filters out chop and frames genuine directional moves.
Choosing a mode
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Read price action generally | Candlesticks / OHLC |
| See the clean trend | Line / Area / Heiken Ashi |
| Study who's trading where inside the bar | Clusters (Footprint) |
| Find value areas and accepted price | TPO |
| Normalise by activity instead of time | Tick Number / Tick Range |
Each mode has its own options under Settings (for example, footprint bin size and colour grading, or TPO profile options) — see Chart Settings.