FreeDOM Documentation

FreeDOM is a custom Depth of Market (DOM) addon for NinjaTrader 8, designed for futures traders who want full control over their order flow visualization. It provides a price ladder with a modular column system, where every column, color, alignment, and behavior can be configured independently. All settings are saved per-instrument, so your ES setup can look completely different from your NQ setup. The product name and version are read from AssemblyInfo, so they stay consistent across the addon menu, window titles, and settings display.

FreeDOM includes automatic data feed detection that identifies whether your connection provides full Level 2 depth, top-of-book only, or trades only, and displays the detected mode in the window title so you always know what data you're working with.

To launch FreeDOM, go to New › FreeDOM in NinjaTrader's Control Center. An instrument selector will appear where you can pick a futures contract. Recently used instruments appear at the top marked with a star for quick access. After selecting an instrument and contract month (the front month is auto-selected), click Launch to open the DOM window.

The main window consists of the price ladder with your chosen columns arranged around it, and a responsive footer bar at the bottom. The footer contains all primary controls centered with equal spacing: an instrument dropdown for switching contracts, an account dropdown for selecting which trading account to track, Flatten All and Trade Panel buttons, and a Settings gear icon. When the window is too narrow to fit all controls on one line, the Flatten All and Trade Panel buttons automatically move to a second row above.

The window title shows the product name, detected data mode, and instrument — for example FreeDOM [L2] NQ 06-26 indicates full Level 2 data on the June 2026 NQ contract. Data mode indicators are:

• [L2] — Full Level 2 depth data detected
• [TOB] — Top-of-book bid/ask only (no full depth)
• [T] — Trades only (no bid/ask or depth)

FreeDOM uses a fully modular column system. You can add, remove, reorder, and resize columns from the Layout & Themes tab in settings. The Price column is always required, but everything else is optional.

FreeDOM has a complete theming system with two types of themes:

Both theme types support saving, loading, and deleting. Built-in themes cannot be deleted. Themes are stored as XML files in the Color and Layout theme subdirectories.

FreeDOM includes two opening range indicators that draw horizontal lines across the price ladder:

FreeDOM automatically detects your data feed capabilities within the first few seconds of connecting to an instrument. The detected mode appears in the window title:

• Full Level 2 — Both depth book and trade data are available. All columns function fully.
• Top of Book Only — Trade data and best bid/ask are available, but no full depth book. Depth and Pull/Stack columns will not populate.
• Trades Only — Only trade prints are available. Bid/Ask, Depth, and Pull/Stack columns will not populate.

Detection completes after receiving at least 3 data events or after a 5-second timeout. This lets FreeDOM adapt its display to whatever data your broker or market data provider supports.

The account selector lives in the footer bar as a dropdown, right next to the instrument selector. When you click the dropdown, it refreshes the list of connected accounts so any accounts connected after the DOM was opened will appear immediately. Selecting an account activates position tracking and trade management for that account on the current DOM.

When switching away from an account that has an active position, a confirmation dialog warns you before making the change. When no account is selected, the dropdown displays Account as placeholder text.

With an account selected, FreeDOM displays your live position directly on the price ladder:

• Entry, Stop Loss, and Take Profit lines are drawn across the ladder at their respective price levels, each with customizable colors, widths, and label styling.
• Position labels show your entry point with optional tick distance, price offset, or P&L display.
• Working order labels appear for pending orders with buy/sell color coding, and include +/- buttons to adjust quantity and an X button to cancel.
• All labels have configurable text, fill, and outline colors, font size, and horizontal positioning.

• Shift+Click Trade Entry — Shift+Click on the Bid column to place a Buy Limit (below current price) or Buy Stop (above). Shift+Click on the Ask column for Sell Limit (above) or Sell Stop (below).
• Drag-to-Modify — Click and drag Stop Loss or Take Profit lines on the ladder to modify order prices in real time.
• Move SL to Hover Price (default: S) — Hover over any price row and press the configured key to instantly move all stop loss orders to that price.
• Auto-Balance Quantities — Automatically matches your SL/TP order quantities with your current position size. Includes a safety check to prevent over-filled exit orders.
• Market Exit Hotkey (default: X) — Exits one contract at market per keypress, automatically detecting your position direction.
• Flatten All (default: F, configurable) — Closes your entire position and cancels all working orders. When the position goes flat, all remaining resting orders are automatically cancelled.

The Trade Panel (footer button) provides a bracket order configuration popup where you can set up:

• Entry quantity
• Stop loss distance (in ticks or points)
• Up to 5 independent take profit levels, each with its own contract count and distance
• Named presets for saving and loading bracket configurations

FreeDOM supports configurable hotkeys that work when the DOM window has focus. The following keys can be remapped in the settings:

Additionally, the following controls are always available:

• Ctrl + Scroll — Adjust row height
• Scroll — Scroll the price ladder

The Contract tab in settings shows your current contract's expiry information and provides a way to switch to a different contract month for the same root symbol. Contract expiry is determined by the end of the contract month (not NT8's rollover date), so contracts are only marked as expired when the month actually ends.

When switching, if a saved configuration exists for the target contract it will be loaded automatically; otherwise your current settings carry over. The available contracts dropdown indicates which months already have saved configurations.

FreeDOM also performs periodic rollover detection. If the current contract has expired, a prompt appears offering to switch to the next front-month contract. This check supports NQ, MNQ, ES, and MES contracts.

FreeDOM supports running multiple instrument panels simultaneously from a single addon instance. Each panel operates independently with its own:

• Data feed subscription
• Settings and layout configuration
• Account tracking
• Window position

Open panels are tracked automatically. When NinjaTrader restarts, FreeDOM restores all panels that were open in the previous session without requiring any user interaction.

The footer bar at the bottom of the DOM window contains all primary controls. Items are centered as a group with fixed spacing between them:

• Instrument Dropdown — Select or type an instrument name to switch contracts
• Account Dropdown — Select a connected account for position tracking and trading
• Flatten All Button — Close position and cancel all orders
• Trade Panel Button — Open bracket order configuration (if trade management enabled)
• Settings Gear — Open the settings window

When the window is resized too narrow to fit all controls, the Flatten All and Trade Panel buttons automatically move to a centered row above the dropdowns and gear icon. They return to the single row when the window is wide enough again.

The price ladder supports two centering modes:

You can press the Recenter hotkey or click the middle mouse button at any time to snap back to the current price. Row height is adjustable via settings or Ctrl + Scroll, and the Ticks per Row setting compresses multiple tick levels into a single row for instruments with very fine tick sizes.

The settings window is accessed via the gear icon in the DOM footer. It has a sidebar with tabs for each section. Changes take effect immediately on the live panel as you adjust them. Click Save Settings to persist changes to disk, or Close to discard.

General

The General tab controls global panel behavior. You'll find the background color and text size that apply across all columns. The ladder centering section lets you choose between Edge Scrolling and Always Centered. You can set the scroll threshold percentage and assign a hotkey to recenter manually.

Grid borders can be toggled on for both rows and columns, each with independent colors. The performance section exposes the UI update interval, which controls how often the panel redraws — lower values give smoother updates but use more CPU. The current effective FPS is displayed next to the slider. A debug toggle enables diagnostic logging to local files.

Layout & Themes

This tab manages the column arrangement and theming system. The column configuration area has two lists — available columns on the left and your current layout on the right. Use Add/Remove to move columns between lists, and Move Up/Down to reorder. Columns in the current list can be checked or unchecked to show or hide them without removing them. The Price column cannot be removed.

Below the column lists are spacing controls for outer padding, column gap, and price column gap. The color theme and layout theme sections each have a dropdown to select a saved theme, along with Apply, Save As New, and Delete buttons. Applying a layout theme shows a reminder to use Save Settings to make the change permanent.

The custom colors section at the bottom lets you create named colors using RGB sliders or hex input. These appear in every color dropdown throughout settings, marked with a star.

Price Column

Controls the appearance of the central price ladder. You can set a column background color, price text color, and trim leading or trailing digits for a cleaner display.

The last price row section controls how the current price is highlighted: text color, background fill, and a box outline that can span the full row or just the price column. The outline color and thickness are adjustable. Row scaling lets you set the row height and ticks per row.

Bid × Ask

Configures the Recent Bid/Ask column. Toggle text visibility, set independent text and bar colors for buy/sell, and control alignment separately. Decayed colors control how bars and text look as they fade over time. The time decay setting determines how quickly volume fades out. There's a hotkey to reset all bid/ask data, and an option to auto-reset when an entry order fills. Filter and highlight thresholds let you hide small values and apply highlight colors to large ones. The last update highlight mode marks the most recently traded price with a border and background.

Delta / Volume Leg

Controls the Delta & Volume Leg column (or the standalone variants). Delta text and volume text can each be independently shown or hidden with their own colors and alignments. The leg reversal setting defines how many ticks of delta reversal are needed to start a new volume leg. A dedicated hotkey resets delta and leg data, with optional auto-reset on entry fill. Bar colors are configurable for positive delta, negative delta, and volume separately.

Depth

Configures the Bid Depth and Ask Depth columns. Set how many levels to display and how many to calculate internally (a performance consideration for deep books). Each side has independent text color, bar color, and alignments. Hover highlighting colors the row under your mouse cursor, with separate colors for bid and ask. Click-lock highlighting lets you click a depth row to pin the highlight at that price.

Pull/Stack

Controls the Pull/Stack columns. Configure how many levels to show and calculate, with independent colors for pulls vs stacks on each side. Cumulative count is an optional display that shows the running total of net pull/stack activity. Bar colors distinguish between pulls (orders removed) and stacks (orders added).

Volume Profile

Configures the Volume Profile column. The volume type dropdown switches between Standard mode (single bar) and BuySell mode (overlaid buy and sell bars). Text can be toggled, displayed as absolute volume or percentage of total. Volume resets automatically at session open, configurable between ETH (6:00 PM EST) and RTH (9:30 AM EST).

Time & Sales

This tab has a dropdown at the top to switch between Time & Sales I and Time & Sales II settings. Both columns have identical structures but are configured independently, so you can run two different filtered views side by side. Display options let you show or hide the timestamp, price, and trade size, with optional milliseconds. A minimum size filter hides trades below a threshold. The large trade highlight system flags trades exceeding a size threshold with distinct background and text colors.

Label Column

A simple tab with just a column background color setting. The Label column itself displays indicator labels (like Opening Range levels) at their corresponding price levels. The appearance of individual labels is controlled in the Indicators tab.

Indicators

Contains a dropdown to switch between the available indicator configuration panels. The 30-Second Opening Range captures the high and low of the first 30 seconds after RTH open. Toggle the display, midline, and extension levels. Each line has independent color and width settings. A render layer option controls whether lines draw behind or in front of column data. The 5-Minute Opening Range captures the 9:30–9:35 AM EST range with the same options, configured entirely independently.

Position Tracking

Controls the live position display on the DOM. The Show Open Trades checkbox is the master toggle. When enabled, you can independently toggle the entry, stop loss, and take profit lines, each with its own colors and styling. The position label display dropdown controls what appears on the position label: nothing, tick distance, or dollar P&L. Working order labels for pending orders have independent buy/sell text and fill colors.

Trade Management

This tab only appears if trade management is enabled at compile time. A prominent warning reminds you that these features place and modify real orders. Enable Drag-to-Modify, Enable Shift+Click Trade Entry, and Auto-Balance Quantities toggle the corresponding behaviors. Hotkeys for Market Exit (default X), Move Stop Loss (default S), and Flatten All (default F) are configurable here.

Contract

Shows information about your current futures contract: instrument name, expiry month, and days until expiry. Expiry is based on the end of the contract month, not NT8's rollover date. The Switch Contract section lists available contracts for the same root symbol. The dropdown indicates which contracts already have saved configurations. Selecting a contract and clicking the switch button prompts for confirmation.

Every setting in FreeDOM is saved independently per instrument. When you open ES, it loads your ES configuration. When you open NQ, it loads your NQ configuration. If you switch to a contract that has no saved configuration, your current settings carry over as a starting point.