Tom Hall

I follow many different Max related groups across the internet. There is one group with an almost immediate response time, the 

. On it people will post ideas, cries for help, problems and wishes and end up with a slew of answers in seconds.

A recent feature wish I saw by a user was, “

” - within moments others chimed in and within 20-minutes there were multiple patch options floating around with just what they had wished for. I watched with intrigue, I had a solution but I was interested to see how people would work together to make it happen, BOOM! Philippe Hughes and Nick Hwang almost dropped the same answer simultaneously.

The answer is sitting right there in the .maxhelp files, they’re loaded with tabs that are very easy to make.

You can also just jump straight into making Tabs by 

downloading and open this “Max_Tabs” starter patch

I follow many different Max related groups across the internet. There is one group with an almost immediate response time, the Max/MSP Facebook Group. On it people will post ideas, cries for help, problems and wishes and end up with a slew of answers in seconds.

A recent feature wish I saw by a user was, “I wish Max had tabs!” - within moments others chimed in and within 20-minutes there were multiple patch options floating around with just what they had wished for. I watched with intrigue, I had a solution but I was interested to see how people would work together to make it happen, BOOM! Philippe Hughes and Nick Hwang almost dropped the same answer simultaneously. 

Make a subpatcher, type ‘N’ for a new then type ‘p’ then ‘name of subpatcher/tab’


In the new subpatcher window that launches, open the patch inspector window (View>Inspector Window) towards the bottom of the inspector window toggle on “Show on Parent patcher Tab”


To make more tabs just duplicate the subpatcher and rename

To make the root level tab disappear, right-click on the tabs and untoggle “Show Root Patcher on Tab”.


You can also just jump straight into making Tabs by downloading and open this “Max_Tabs” starter patch.

For more details, check out Nick Hwang’s nice step-by-step guide.


learning-about-tabs-in-max

Thanks for this guide! I had trouble with the last step (Hiding the root patcher). The right click must be done to the right of the Tabs, not on them (Max 7.1 - OS X 10.11.2). That's how I managed to do it.

Would this work for an M4L patch aswell?


You forgot to mention that one has to press "All" instead of preselected "Basic" view on the Inspector. Otherwise “Show on Parent patcher Tab” will not be shown.

You forgot to mention that one has to press "All" instead of preselected "Basic" view on the Inspector. Otherwise  “Show on Parent patcher Tab” will not be shown.

Neat. Is it possible to change the font size for the Tabs?

VERY neat, thanks Tom! I'll certainly be using tabs for tidying-up duties. :-)

(I now have 7 tabs in a subpatcher window - the main subpatcher and 6 sub-subpatchers - but the main subpatcher's tab is 3rd and I can't see how to change it. Apart from moving all 6 sub-subpatchers to the right of the centre of the window, which defeats the purpose of tidying up the patch.)

Q: Can the order of the tabs be changed? 

(I now have 7 tabs in a subpatcher window - the main subpatcher and 6 sub-subpatchers - but the main subpatcher's tab is 3rd and I can't see how to change it. Apart from moving all 6 sub-subpatchers to the right of the centre of the window, which defeats the purpose of tidying up the patch.)


This is just what i need right now - thanks to the authors for sharing this.

The Left-To-Right order of the tabs changes with the Left-to-Right order of the patcher objects in the main window. BTW, you can also have spaces in your Tab if you name the sub patcher something like [p "Tabs with Space"]

Is it possible to edit the colors for the tabs?

Is there a way to bring the tabs to the front without clicking on them? the 'front' message to thispatcher opens a new window as opposed to opening the tab within the window.

Learning about Tabs in Max