Bid Ask Tick Count For ThinkOrSwim

[nrghound]

I've been hacking together thinkscript studies for a while and have come across the idea of trying to see the buy/sell pressure with the difference in bid and ask volumes.

declare lower;
def askVol = Volume(priceType = PriceType.ASK);
def bidVol = Volume(priceType = PriceType.BID);
plot pressure = askVol - bidVol;

but while it is legal code according to thinkorswim, it doesn't seem to produce any results. At all.

I'm trying to run this against tick charts, not time aggregated.

I found a study that uses this (mobius' perhaps):

def TradeCountASK = tick_count(priceType = PriceType.ASK);
def TradeCountBID = tick_count(priceType = PriceType.BID);

And does something on time-based charts, but doesn't do anything (seemingly) on tick-based charts. Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

I've been messing around with tick_count for a while. This produces meaningful results. Check it out. Maybe you can improve.

# tick_count_up_down_historgram By Walter H Rose March 11 2022
# The first time I've posted code that works

declare lower;
def  bid_count        = tick_count(pricetype = PriceType.BID);
def  ask_count        = tick_count(pricetype = PriceType.ASK);

#note the minus sign in front of ask_count below
plot asks                 = -ask_count  ; 
plot bids                 =  bid_count    ;

#I add them below because asks is negative
plot bid_minus_ask = (bids + asks) ;
plot zeroline           = 0   ;

asks.SetPaintingStrategy(PaintingStrategy.HISTOGRAM);
asks.AssignValueColor(Color.RED);

bids.SetPaintingStrategy(PaintingStrategy.HISTOGRAM);
bids.AssignValueColor(Color.GREEN);

#plot a white line showing the balance on the histogram
bid_minus_ask.AssignValueColor(Color.WHITE);

#Add a label showing the ticks for the current bar and the balance that is green when positive and red when negative
AddLabel(yes," Bid Ticks = " + bids + " Ask Ticks = " + asks + " = Balance "  +bid_minus_ask , if (bid_minus_ask > 0) then Color.green else color.red);