In the beginning, LowFlow was built around my own environment. That was natural. I developed what I needed to trade, with the platforms I used and the data I had on hand.
But the moment I decided to turn it into a real product, one question became impossible to avoid: was LowFlow only supposed to work with my way of trading?
Obviously not.
One trader doesn't use the same tools as another
Some use NinjaTrader. Others Sierra Chart. Others Quantower. Some simply import their trades with a CSV file.
There are futures. Forex. CFDs. And later, other markets can be added.
If I wanted LowFlow to be able to grow, I definitely could not build the journal around a single platform. I had to build a system capable of receiving data from several sources.
That's where the add-ons found their place
The idea was simple: the trading platform does what it already does very well. LowFlow then retrieves the information the journal needs. Trades. Entries. Exits. Times. Prices. Screenshots when available.
And all of it stays local on the trader's computer.
I did not want to force anyone to manually export their trades every evening. Even less to copy and paste dozens of lines into a journal. If the platform already has the information, the system should be able to retrieve it.
But every platform is different
That's where the work gets interesting. NinjaTrader does not work exactly like Sierra Chart. Sierra Chart does not work exactly like Quantower. The formats are not identical. The files are not identical. The ways of identifying trades are not always identical.
And yet, in the end, LowFlow has to understand the same thing: here is a trade.
That's when I started thinking more in terms of bridges than platforms. Each source can speak its own language. LowFlow has to be able to translate.
CSV became important for the same reason
I know very well that I will never be able to support every trading platform from day one. There are far too many. So I also kept a door open. If a platform can export a CSV, LowFlow can learn to read it.
The goal is not to say: "your platform is not supported." The goal is instead to ask: "what data can it give me?" And from there, build the parser needed.
Opening the journal without turning it into a factory
That was the real challenge. Adding several platforms can very quickly turn a simple project into a huge, complicated system. I did not want that.
The heart of LowFlow had to stay the same. The trader opens the journal. The data arrives. They review their day. The complexity has to stay behind. Not in front of them.
LowFlow became bigger than my own setup
From that point on, I was no longer building only for my platform. I was building a structure capable of hosting several.
That change may seem small from the outside. But for me, it was an important step. LowFlow could now start to adapt to the trader. Not the other way around.