The long-awaited NT8 version is still a work in progress.
There are many challenges and workarounds with migrating from NT7 to NT8. The “WPF” technology is a significant hurdle and offers, in some ways, less capability but in most ways far better than its predecessor, “Windows Forms.” WinForms was lightning quick to use and develop in but was discontinued, hence NinjaTrader had no alternative but to switch to WPF, which is very slow, ponderous, and laborious to develop applications with in comparison.
The good news is that NT8 is light years ahead of NT7 and allows us to create unimaginable features and methods compared to prior versions. The trading is faster, the data is faster, and the presentation is even better. All in all, the wait will be very worthwhile, so the only downside is really development time.
NT8 does allow the up-to-date .NET Microsoft framework 4.8, but the caveat is the WPF layer it uses is of older versions. This means we are limited and restricted and not able to use the full gamut of tools and components from our development kits. It means there is a lot of rework and dead ends, and a lot of time-consuming effort, weeks and months spent, until we find a workaround to resolve the hurdles. That is the norm in development—nothing worth doing is easy, and then we have to do it all again for NinjaTrader 9 down the road, but it will be far easier, we expect.
Due to delays and developer obligations to hedge fund algo trading, the only way we are going to get a release out is to do it in stages. So in February, the indicators will be rolled out and released, followed by the Trading System automated Easy Trader and NinjaTrader 8 strategy back-tester, etc.
The Alpha Bias and Trendometer may also be complemented with or replaced by a remote API version due to the performance overhead this has on some machines, but time will tell.
There will be ongoing updates and releases over time. The project will easily continue over a 6-month period as new features are released also.
Please help us use our time wisely, and do not weigh down resources by asking the help desk for support regarding when the AFT8 is going to arrive. Please keep a check on social media and newsletters. February will see the first indicators as the plan goes.