Connect your platform

Recap clips your trades the moment they close — but first it needs to know when you enter and exit. A small connector for your trading platform tells it: the connector watches your trades and hands them to Recap, which does everything else (assembling complete round‑trip trades, labeling, and clipping).

You install the connector once. After that it runs quietly inside your platform and the whole flow is automatic.

Usually you won’t even have to go looking: on launch, Recap checks the standard install folders for platforms you already have — Sierra Chart, NinjaTrader, MotiveWave — and if it finds one with no connector installed, it offers to set it up right there: “Recap found Sierra Chart. Install the connector so your trades record automatically?” Install downloads and copies the connector(s) in one step (the same flow as the Integrations tab, including the close-your-platform-and-retry message if the platform is running); Not now dismisses the offer for those platforms permanently — you can always install later from the Integrations tab. A platform installed after Recap gets its own offer the next time Recap starts. Recap never copies anything into a platform’s folders without you clicking Install.

Get the connector

Open the Integrations tab and click Download & Install on your platform’s card. Recap downloads the connector and copies it straight into your platform’s standard folder for you — Sierra Chart’s Data folder (both instances, if you run SierraChart and SierraChart2 side by side), NinjaTrader’s Documents\NinjaTrader 8\bin\Custom, or MotiveWave’s MotiveWave Extensions. The card tells you what happened:

• Installed — names the folder(s) it copied to and the next step (restart the platform, and for Sierra Chart and MotiveWave, add the study or strategy to a chart).
• Locked — the platform is running and holding its current copy of the connector open. Close the platform and click Download & Install again.
• Not detected — Recap couldn’t find a standard install folder. It still downloads the file and gives you a Reveal file button so you can drop it in yourself — see the per‑platform folder named below.
• Download failed — the download itself didn’t go through. The card names the reason; check your connection and try again.

A stale install shows Update in place of Download & Install, so this is also how you pick up a newer connector later. An up‑to‑date install shows no button at all.

Quantower and ATAS X appear on the tab with a Beta badge. Until each connector is published, its card reads coming soon and has no install button — the moment one ships, Download & Install appears on the card by itself, no app update needed. Their sections below describe what to expect.

Tradovate is the exception on the tab: it’s a direct connection to your Tradovate account, not a file you install. Its card sits below the platform cards and works differently — see Tradovate below.

Prefer to grab the file yourself, or setting up before you’ve signed in? Each link below downloads the same file the button installs:

• Download the Sierra Chart connector (RecapSidecar.dll)
• Download the NinjaTrader connector (RecapSidecar.dll)
• Download the MotiveWave connector (RecapSidecar.jar)

Setup is otherwise the same on every platform: the file goes into a folder your platform reads, then you restart the platform and tell it to start watching. The per‑platform steps below cover both the automatic and the by‑hand path.

Note

Keep Recap running while you trade — the connector hands your trades to Recap on your own machine, so nothing leaves your computer. Start Recap first, then your trading platform.

Note

Recap checks for connector updates itself. Open the Integrations tab to see which version you have installed and download the latest — an Update sidecar pill also appears in the top bar when a newer one is available. Recap can only tell which version you’re running once it has received a fill, so a brand-new install reads “not detected” until you place your first trade.

Check your connection

The Integrations tab always shows the stable Sierra Chart, NinjaTrader, and MotiveWave cards, plus beta cards for Quantower and ATAS X, whether you’ve set those platforms up or not. An unpublished beta connector reads Coming soon; another platform you haven’t touched reads Not set up in grey. The direct Tradovate card sits below them. These are invitations, not warnings. Once a connector is installed or Tradovate is linked, the card’s state and status line answer the one question that matters: will my next trade record?

• Verified — a real trade has come through, or a connection test passed. The status line names the sidecar version, e.g. “Recording trades · sidecar 1.5.0”.
• Connected — the connector is reachable but hasn’t proven a fill can land yet.
• Not connected — nothing has been heard from the connector. While you’re recording this reads “Not hearing Sierra Chart”; while stopped it reads “Last verified 9:14 AM today” (or “Not connected yet” if it’s never checked in).
• Sidecar missing — the connector file is gone from your platform’s install folder, even though it worked before. Platform updates and reinstalls (NinjaTrader especially) can wipe the folder the connector lives in; the status line reads “Sidecar file missing — a NinjaTrader update or reinstall may have removed it” and the card offers Reinstall, which downloads and copies the connector back in one step. Recap checks the folder on every status refresh, so the card catches this within seconds — but a connector installed to a custom location it can’t see stays trusted, and a card wrongly showing this state corrects itself the moment the connector checks in.

Each card also shows the connector version you have installed against the latest published version.

Test connection

Click Test connection on a card to have that connector send one synthetic trade through its normal send path, without you needing to place a real trade. The result tells you exactly what’s wrong when something is:

• Pass — names the account, instrument, and how long the round trip took. The account number is shown in full here on purpose — this is a read-out of your connector’s own configuration, not a trade, so there’s nothing to mask.
• Filtered — the connector answered, but its own Account Filter setting is blocking the test. Clear the filter or point it at the account you actually trade.
• Rejected — the connector sent the test, but Recap refused it. This usually means the connector is out of date; download the latest from its card.
• Silent pickup — the connector answered but no fill arrived; check that its Recap study or strategy is still enabled on your chart.
• No answer — nothing came back at all. Check the platform is running and the connector is installed and up to date.

Test connection depends on a newer connector than the ones documented above — the next connector update (Sierra Chart 1.6.0 / NinjaTrader 1.3.0 / MotiveWave 1.3.0) adds it. Until that update is released, every platform correctly answers No answer from …. That’s the expected response, not a failure on your part.

The Start Recording warning

If you click Start recording while no platform reads as connected, Recap asks first: “Recap will record your screens, but no trades will be detected — so no clips will be cut.” Record anyway starts recording with no trade detection; Open Integrations switches to this tab instead, without starting anything. A connector that was already working before you updated Recap doesn’t trigger this — Recap gives an established setup the benefit of the doubt until it’s had the chance to check in for itself.

Sierra Chart

The Sierra Chart connector is a study (“Recap Fill Forwarder”) that you add to the charts you trade.

Overview, honest notes and FAQ on one page: Recap for Sierra Chart.

1. Click Download & Install on the Sierra Chart card in the Integrations tab — Recap copies RecapSidecar.dll into Sierra Chart’s Data folder for you (both C:\SierraChart\Data\ and C:\SierraChart2\Data\, if you run both instances). Not detected? Copy the downloaded file into the Data folder inside your Sierra Chart installation yourself — the same folder that holds your chartbooks.
2. Restart Sierra Chart so it loads the new study.
3. Add the study to a chart. Open a chart of an instrument you trade, then Chart → Studies → Add Custom Study → Recap Fill Forwarder → Add.
4. Repeat step 3 on every chart whose fills you want captured. The study is per‑chart, so each new symbol you trade means adding it to that chart too.
5. Trade as usual. When a position goes flat, a labeled clip appears in your Library within a few seconds.

A few study Inputs let you fine‑tune behavior — for example, Forward only these accounts limits capture to the accounts you list (comma‑separated; matching ignores case, and a bare account id also matches its service‑decorated form). If a filter skips a fill, Sierra’s Message Log shows the exact account string to copy into the input. Defaults work for most traders.

Tip

Replacing an older connector while Sierra Chart is running? Windows won’t let you overwrite a loaded DLL — Download & Install reports this as Locked on the card (copying by hand fails the same way, with a file‑in‑use error). Close Sierra Chart and try again.

Windows on ARM: the Sierra Chart connector ships as two files — RecapSidecar.dll and RecapSidecar_ARM64.dll. Put both in the Data folder. They coexist by design: SierraChart_64.exe loads the first and SierraChart_ARM64.exe loads the second, so the right one is used automatically and you don’t need to know which build you run. Download & Install copies the first one in for you automatically; grab the ARM64 companion from the same download and copy it into the Data folder alongside it.

NinjaTrader

The NinjaTrader connector is an AddOn that loads once with NinjaTrader and covers every account and chart automatically — there’s nothing to add per chart, ever.

Overview, the NT8 chart-window note and FAQ on one page: Recap for NinjaTrader.

1. Click Download & Install on the NinjaTrader card in the Integrations tab — Recap copies RecapSidecar.dll into Documents\NinjaTrader 8\bin\Custom\ for you. Not detected? Copy the downloaded file into that folder yourself.
2. Restart NinjaTrader. The connector loads on startup. It arrives already compiled, so there’s no NinjaScript Editor step and nothing to build.
3. Confirm it loaded. Open Control Center → Log and look for a Recap: initialized line.
4. Trade as usual. When a position goes flat, a labeled clip appears in your Library within a few seconds.

By default it captures all connected accounts; an optional setting narrows it to one.

Caution

Record the monitor, not individual NinjaTrader chart windows. NinjaTrader 8 chart windows can capture as a black frame when recorded as individual windows — a known platform quirk. Recording the whole monitor (or SuperDOM windows) works fine. See Troubleshooting.

MotiveWave

The MotiveWave connector is a strategy that you add to the charts you trade. It works with MotiveWave 6 and 7.

Overview, edition requirement and FAQ on one page: Recap for MotiveWave.

Caution

Professional or Ultimate edition required. MotiveWave’s Strategy menu, and custom strategies generally, aren’t available on lower editions — so the connector can’t be loaded there. There’s no Study‑menu alternative either: a plain study never sees your fills.

1. Click Download & Install on the MotiveWave card in the Integrations tab — Recap copies RecapSidecar.jar into your MotiveWave Extensions folder for you, %USERPROFILE%\MotiveWave Extensions by default. Not detected, or using a custom path set in MotiveWave → Preferences → General → Extensions? Copy the downloaded file in yourself.
2. Restart MotiveWave. On startup it logs Loading extension jar file: ...RecapSidecar.jar once it picks up the file.
3. Add the strategy to a chart. Open the chart’s Strategy menu → All Strategies → Recap → Recap Sidecar, and add it. (If it isn’t listed, use Import at the bottom of that dialog and select the jar directly.)
4. Activate the strategy. It forwards trades only while it’s active.
5. Repeat steps 3–4 on every chart you trade — the strategy is per‑chart, and it runs for the life of that chart.
6. Trade as usual. When a position goes flat, a labeled clip appears in your Library within a few seconds.

Note

Two things that look like a failed install but aren’t. It’s a Strategy, not a Study — it will never show up in the Study menu, so look under Strategy → All Strategies. And once active it shows no Long/Short/Enter buttons: it sits silently in the background instead of offering to place trades for you. To confirm it’s actually running, look for Recap: initialized in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Recap\logs\sidecar-motivewave.log.

Tip

New to this? Place a few round trips in your platform’s simulation mode (Sierra Chart’s Trade Simulation, NinjaTrader’s Sim101 account, or MotiveWave’s simulated trading) and watch the clips land in your Library — a safe way to confirm everything is wired up.

Quantower

The Quantower connector is a strategy that loads once and covers every account on every open connection — there’s nothing to add per chart.

Caution

This connector is in beta. It’s built and unit-tested against Recap’s wire format, but it hasn’t been run against a live Quantower account by anyone outside our team. If something doesn’t line up, tell us at [email protected] — that’s the job.

1. Copy RecapSidecar.dll into <Quantower>\Settings\Scripts\Strategies\RecapSidecar\. Create the RecapSidecar folder if it isn’t already there.
2. Restart Quantower so it picks up the new strategy.
3. Start the strategy. Open the Strategies panel, find Recap Sidecar, and run it.
4. Trade as usual. When a position goes flat, a labeled clip appears in your Library within a few seconds.

ATAS

The ATAS connector is an indicator you add to the charts you trade.

Caution

Two things to know before you install.

ATAS Plus or above is required. Custom indicators are gated by tier — on Lite the connector can’t be loaded at all.

It’s per‑chart, and un‑charted instruments are lost silently. ATAS scopes an indicator to the selected security and portfolio, so a trade on an instrument you have no Recap‑enabled chart open for is never captured, and nothing tells you it was missed. Add the indicator to a chart for every instrument you trade.

1. Pick the right build. ATAS runs on two .NET runtimes, and the platform version doesn’t reliably tell you which one you have. Look in your ATAS install for a *.runtimeconfig.json file — it names the runtime. Download the connector that matches.
2. Copy RecapSidecar.dll into %APPDATA%\ATAS\Indicators. Only the one build that matches your runtime — keeping both in the folder loads the indicator twice.
3. Restart ATAS.
4. Add the indicator to a chart. Open a chart of an instrument you trade, add Recap Sidecar from the indicator list, and apply it.
5. Repeat step 4 on every chart whose fills you want captured.
6. Trade as usual. When a position goes flat, a labeled clip appears in your Library within a few seconds.

Caution

This connector is in beta. It’s built and unit-tested against Recap’s wire format, but it hasn’t been loaded into ATAS against a live account by anyone outside our team. Tell us what you find at [email protected].

ATAS X

ATAS X runs the same connector model as ATAS. Recap is currently Windows-only, so the supported end-to-end workflow is on Windows. The tier requirement, the per‑chart scoping, and the silent loss on un‑charted instruments in the ATAS section above all apply here too — read that caution first.

1. Copy RecapSidecar.dll into the ATAS X Indicators folder.
2. Restart ATAS X.
3. Add the indicator to a chart, once per instrument you trade.
4. Trade as usual.

Caution

This connector is in beta. Tell us what breaks at [email protected].

Tradovate

Tradovate is the one connection that isn’t a file you install. Instead of a connector living inside a charting platform, Recap links to your Tradovate account itself — so it hears fills from every platform you trade Tradovate through, with no study or strategy to add anywhere.

Overview, honest notes and FAQ on one page: Recap for Tradovate.

Caution

This connection is in beta. Sign-in and demo capture are proven; live-account capture hasn’t been through many hands yet. If something doesn’t line up on your account, tell us at [email protected].

The Tradovate card sits at the bottom of the Integrations tab, under the platform cards. Its status pill has three states of its own: Not connected, Connected (linked, waiting for a recording), and Capturing (live and listening — only ever shown while you’re recording).

Connect your account

1. Pick the Environment — Demo or Live — to match where your accounts live. The picker locks while connected; to switch, Disconnect Tradovate first. (Picked the wrong one? The account list notices, names the environment your accounts are actually on, and tells you to disconnect and switch.)
2. Click Connect Tradovate. Your default browser opens Tradovate’s own sign‑in page — you sign in there, and Recap never sees your password. You need to be signed in to Recap first, and the offer stays open for five minutes; past that the card reads “That took too long. Connect Tradovate again to retry.”
3. Back in Recap, the pill flips to Connected and your accounts load.

Choose what to capture

• Tick each account under Accounts to capture. A fresh connection starts with nothing selected, and an unticked account is never captured — so tick at least one. Refresh re‑reads the list from Tradovate.
• Turn on Capture Tradovate fills while recording. It starts off. The card warns you while either half is missing — “No accounts selected — Recap will not capture any Tradovate fills yet.” or “Capture is off — selected accounts will not be recorded until you turn it on.”

Caution

Leave an account unselected if the NinjaTrader sidecar already covers it — otherwise every fill arrives twice and counts as two trades.

How capture behaves

• Recap only holds a Tradovate session while you’re recording. Tradovate allows just two simultaneous sessions per login, and keeping one open all day could sign you out of your trading screen — so Recap connects when you press Start recording and lets go when you stop. Between recordings the card correctly reads Connected, not Capturing.
• If Tradovate keeps signing Recap out mid‑recording, capture stops with “Stopped: repeated sign‑outs — another Tradovate session may be taking over. Close Tradovate on your other devices, then start recording again.” That’s the two‑session limit at work, not a fault in your setup.
• The Tradovate card has no Test connection button — that test is for platform connectors. The pill reaching Capturing after you start recording is the confirmation that fills will land.
• A Tradovate link that’s ready to capture — connected, capture on, at least one account ticked — counts as a connected platform for the Start Recording warning, so a Tradovate‑only setup isn’t warned every time it starts. Linked but with capture off (or nothing ticked) still warns, because no clips would be cut.

Peak and heat (MAE/MFE)

While you’re in a trade, Recap also tracks the highest and lowest price the market traded during the hold, so Peak · MFE and Heat · MAE on the Review screen — and the peak/heat markers on its scrubber — now work for Tradovate the same way they already do for Sierra Chart.

Note

This needs its own market‑data subscription on your Tradovate account, separate from the connection that captures fills. Without one, everything else is unaffected — fills, clips, every other feature — only Peak/Heat stay absent, and the card tells you why: “Market data unavailable — MAE/MFE won’t be recorded. Fills are unaffected.”

Market data runs over a second connection that’s strictly subordinate to your fills: if it drops, the card still reads Capturing and fills keep landing — only the Peak/Heat numbers are affected. Some trades also carry only partial excursion (a floor on the true move, not the whole of it) — see Review a trade for when that happens and why it’s not a bug.

Disconnect

Disconnect Tradovate forgets the connection on this computer only — your ticked accounts and the capture toggle are kept for next time. As the card says after: to revoke Recap’s access entirely, remove it in your Tradovate account settings.

Note

Recap’s access to Tradovate is read‑only — it can see accounts and fills, and has no way to place, change, or cancel an order. The sign‑in token is kept in the Windows Credential Manager, not in a file, and your Tradovate password is never seen or stored by Recap.

Trading on another platform?

Connectors are available for Sierra Chart, NinjaTrader and MotiveWave; Quantower, ATAS, ATAS X and the direct Tradovate connection are in beta. If you trade somewhere else, tell us which platform you’d like — from inside the app via Settings → Suggest a feature, or by email at [email protected].

You can still record any screen without a connector; you just won’t get automatic per-trade clips. You can cut clips yourself from the Timeline.