Collectives are files that contain all of the necessary resources to use a patcher. These resources can include
abstractions, external objects, image files, or audio files. Making a collective allows you to give someone else a project you've created in Max with the confidence it not be missing something it needs in order to work properly. That is, with one caveat: collectives, unlike patcher files, are generally platform-specific, because they contain platform-specific external objects.
When you build a collective from a patcher, Max analyzes patcher to find its
dependencies (the resources the patcher needs). You can use the
collective editor or write a
collective build script to include files in a collective that are not added automatically.
While collectives include the necessary resources to be opened in Max, they still require either Max or Max Runtime to operate. A
standalone application is a collective that is combined with a copy of Max Runtime. Standalone applications, which are
always platform-specific, can eliminate all external dependencies for others to run your patch.
You can open the resulting collective
as you would any other Max document by choosing Open...
from the File menu or by double-clicking on the collective in
the Finder on the Mac or Explorer on Windows.