saving a patcher as text not working

mkap7's icon

Hi folks,

I'm having trouble with something that used to work fine for me - saving a patcher as a text file. (Basic, I know.) The online documentation says to open a patcher, go to Save As in the file menu, and select the Max text format ( .mxt). But I do not see a Max text format among the choices. Any idea why not?
Thanks,
-mk

ecuk's icon

Save it as a .maxpat file, which should be plain text.

mkap7's icon

Hmmm.....ok, and I know you can open any .maxpat as a text file......but then what is this Max text format (.mxt)?

ecuk's icon

I am not sure, but my suspicion is that it is a holdover from the days when some filesystems only allowed you to have three-character extensions. Just guessing, though.

Edit: Looking around a bit more it appears that .mxt is a pre-JSON text format. Maybe some who was around before version 5 (I believe) will have a more enlightened answer, however.

Julien Bayle's icon

why would you need to save a patch in Max Text format ?

mkap7's icon

I guess there isn't much need for that if the maxpat file itself is just a text file. (I didn't realize that.)
I went into the Max help stacks looking for how to share patches, and got onto a page about saving things as a "Max text" file (.mxt).....so that's what I tried to do. I see now that it's not necessary - just open as text, cut and paste.