Color Themes

A Max Color Theme defines the colors of elements of the Max user interface, like the toolbar color, as well as default values for object color attributes. You can choose the color theme that you like best, or define your own custom color theme.

Choosing a Color Theme

You can change the colors of the Max interface by choosing a new theme. In the application preferences (Max > Preferences...), under the Interface the Color Theme option lets you select your preferred theme.

Max ships with several color themes, including light and dark themes, as well as themes from previous versions of Max.

Custom Color Themes

You can make a custom color theme by adding a .maxtheme file to the Max Search Path. So long as Max can find this file when the application launches, it will automatically make that color theme available alongside the built-in color themes in the application preferences.

The easiest way to make a custom color theme is to start from one of the existing themes. On macOS these can be found in the application bundle—right-click on the Max application, select "Show Package Contents" and navigate to Contents > Resources > C74 > interfaces > themes. On Windows these can be found in Program Files > Cycling '74 > Max 8 > Resources > interfaces > themes.

Color Theme Format

A Max color theme is a set of Dynamic Colors combined with default values for the current Style. Together, these two sets of values define colors for the Max application as well as Max objects.

The .maxtheme file is simply a JSON file with two properties, colors and styledefaults. The colors property defines the values of Dynamic Colors within that color theme. This is a dictionary that maps identifiers to specific color values. When the application needs to know what color to draw a UI element, it can look in this dictionary to see what color would be consistent with the current theme.

// Example of the "colors" section of a .maxtheme file
{
  "colors" : [
    {
      "id" : "alignmentguide", // The internal name of the color
      "oncolor" : [ 0.737255, 0.466667, 0.219608, 1.0 ], // RGBA format
      "category" : "Patching",
      "label" : "Alignment Guide" // The display name of the color
    },

    {
      "id" : "assistance_background",
      "oncolor" : [ 0.843137, 0.835294, 0.796078, 0.94 ],
      "category" : "Patching",
      "label" : "Assistance Background"
    }

    // ... more colors here
  ]
}

The styledefaults are similar, but work with the current Style to determine the final color of an object. These specify the default color of an object if no other color is defined.

// Exmaple of the "styledefaults" section of a .maxtheme file
{
  "styledefaults" : 	{
    "bgcolor" : [ 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 1 ],
    "color" : [ 0.807843, 0.898039, 0.909804, 1 ],
    "elementcolor" : [ 0.34902, 0.34902, 0.34902, 1 ],
    "accentcolor" : [ 0.501961, 0.501961, 0.501961, 1 ],

    // ... more colors here
  }
}

If an object needs to decide what color to draw, it first looks to its defined attibutes. For example, if a button object needs to draw its background, it looks to its bgcolor attribute. If the user has not defined a custom value for this color, it then looks at the object's style for a value for that color. If the style doesn't contain a value for that attribute, the object checks the patcher's style next. If the patcher doesn't have a style, or if the style doesn't define a color for the given attribute name, then the object will fetch the value from the current global color theme—this is what is specified by styledefaults.