Max-SDK

The Max Software Development Kit (SDK) contains the headers, source, and libraries for building external objects (plug-ins) in C or C++ for Max. It additionally includes documentation of the API, example projects, and CMake scripts for generating Xcode and Visual Studio project files.

The Max SDK depends on max-sdk-base, which provides the low-level bindings to the Max application and CMake scripts for creating your own projects. This dependency is fetched automatically by CMake at configure time.

CMake

The Max SDK uses CMake to generate Xcode and Visual Studio project files. CMake replaced the .xcodeproj and .sln files that previously shipped in the repo. The change was driven by the need to support Apple silicon in Max 8.2. You still open Xcode or Visual Studio to build; CMake is the one-time step that generates those project files. There is an overview video which walks through the updates for supporting Max 8.2, and a legacy guide for those migrating from pre-8.2 projects.

Building

Pre-requisites:

• CMake version >= 3.25
• Xcode (macOS) or Visual Studio (Windows)
• Clone or download max-sdk from GitHub and put it in your Max Package folder or somewhere on Max's search path.

1. Create a build directory to store build artifacts and IDE files

mkdir build
cd build

2. Generate the projects

You can run cmake --help to get a list of generators available for your platform. On macOS, the typical choice is Xcode, and on Windows, it is usually Visual Studio.

On macOS:

cmake -G Xcode ..

Note: you can add the -j4 option to cmake where "4" is the number of cores to use. This can help to speed up your builds, though sometimes the error output is interleaved in such a way as to make troubleshooting more difficult.

On Windows:

cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" ..

3. Build the projects

You can open the IDE projects and build from the Xcode or Visual Studio interface.

Alternatively, you can build from the command line, passing cmake the path to the /build directory after --build.

cmake --build . --config Debug
cmake --build . --config Release

Note: If you are running on a Mac with Apple silicon, you may see an error cannot be loaded due to system security policy when loading your externals in Max. To resolve this, you can ad-hoc codesign your external with codesign --force --deep -s - myobject.mxo.

Writing an external's CMakeLists.txt

Each external has its own CMakeLists.txt. The minimal form looks like this:

set_property(DIRECTORY PROPERTY max::external YES)
set_property(DIRECTORY PROPERTY max::glob ON)
project(myexternal)

• max::external YES tells the SDK build machinery to treat this directory as a Max external.
• max::glob ON automatically includes all .c and .cpp files in the directory as source files.
• project(myexternal) names the external and triggers target creation. The output will be myexternal.mxo (macOS) or myexternal.mxe64 (Windows).

If you want explicit control over which files are compiled, omit max::glob and list them yourself after project():

set_property(DIRECTORY PROPERTY max::external YES)
project(myexternal)

target_sources(myexternal PRIVATE myexternal.cpp helper.cpp)

After project(), the target named ${PROJECT_NAME} exists and can be customized with standard CMake commands such as target_link_libraries, target_include_directories, and target_compile_definitions.

C++ API

If you are interested in using Modern C++ to write external objects, please take a look at the Min DevKit.

Testing

It is highly recommended that you test your code thoroughly. One option is use the max-test package.

Support

For support, please use the developer forums at: http://cycling74.com/forums/