Editing middev and midnam files in OSX 10.15.7 (Catalina)

[GDFourcade]

Wich program is available to edit the MIDI patch names of my external MIDI synths in OSX 10.15.7 (Catalina)?
I'm using DP 10.13 and the middev and midnam files are located in /Library/Audio/MIDI Devices/MOTU/Kurzweil.
CherryPicker was my option several years ago...
Any suggestion?
TIA

[monkey man]

AFAIK we've no choice but to use TextEdit (that's all I have 'cause it's "built-in").

It's a PITA but it can "easily" be done. Not complicated, just a chore. Just be sure to save as "Unicode (UTF-8)" format when you're done.

[richhickey]

You'd be best off using a text editor with XML support (as these files are XML files), i.e. not textedit. I still use TextMate https://macromates.com/ on OS X 10.14

[monkey man]

TextEdit still works 'though Rich, as long as you save in the "Unicode (UTF-8)" format, as I suggested.

[bayswater]

How about BBEdit? It still has a free mode and works well with a lot of formats. It displays MIDNAM and MIDDEV files clearly.

[monkey man]

Ahh.. yeah I've heard of that one, Stoivo.

[richhickey]

TextEdit still works 'though Rich, as long as you save in the "Unicode (UTF-8)" format, as I suggested.

I didn't say TextEdit didn't work. It remains a poor choice vs the many editors that can assist with syntax-highlighting and correct formatting of these files. TextMate (and others) will highlight all the tags in different colors, assist with tag matching (so you don't create an invalid file), will let you expand/collapse the different sections of the file etc. There's no comparison - some (TextMate et al) are tools that can help you and one (TextEdit) is a tool that doesn't help at all. In the image below the top editor is TextEdit and the bottom one is TextMate. Note the colored syntax highlighting and the expand/collapse tools on the left side.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gn9xu7 ... sp=sharing

[monkey man]

Sorry mate; it sounded to me like you were saying it wouldn't work:

You'd be best off using a text editor with XML support (as these files are XML files), i.e. not textedit.

I looked at the image (thanks), and was actually disappointed 'cause I expected things to look much-simpler (I don't know how 'though - above my pay grade). So for me anyway, TextEdit doesn't seem complicated at all and I've edited dozens of .midnam and .middev files over the years using it.

The solution I offered to the OP also took into account what he / she would've already had software-wise, and as I said, "that's all I have 'cause it's built-in".

Thanks for the info, mate.

[James Steele]

Perhaps there's some way to run Cherry Picker on a different computer and then copy over the generated folder and file to the newer computer. Certain things might have to be tweaked. I don't know... haven't had time to mess with it.

[gseibert]

I just recently did as James suggested. I created a Kurzweil PC3 MIDMAN and modified MIDDEV file on my old Mac Pro 3,1 running 10.11.6 using Cherrypicker. I transferred the files over to my 2020 27" iMAC running the latest Catalina. The files worked great. I'm on DP 10.13.