Project files

A project is a single .drtape file: the arrangement, every track’s instrument and effects, automation, the audio clips, the sampler’s samples and the convolver’s impulses. Save it where you like and open it anywhere the app runs. In Chromium browsers Save writes back into the file you opened, like a desktop application; elsewhere it downloads a fresh copy.

When to use it

Save early and often with ⌘S or Ctrl+S. Use Save project as… to branch a version before a risky change. If you reload the page, Reopen in the File menu takes you back to the last file. For audio that other programs can play, use Mixdown export instead; the project file is for coming back to the work.

Controls

Open project…

Opens a file picker. Dropping a .drtape file anywhere on the workspace opens it too, and in Chromium the dropped file becomes the save target. If the project you have open has unsaved changes, you are asked first whether to save them, as with New project. Save and open saves and then opens, Don’t save opens without saving, and Cancel keeps working where you were.

Save project

⌘S / Ctrl+S. In Chrome, Edge, Brave and Opera it writes into the open file with no dialog; the first save of a new project asks where to put it once. The write goes through a temporary file, so an interrupted save leaves the old file intact. A file you pick in the save dialog exists, empty, from that moment until the project is written into it; if that save doesn’t finish, the message says the file is empty for now and your work is still open, so save again. Opening a file left empty, or one cut short, says so rather than calling it something else. In Firefox and Safari it downloads a copy named after the project. The header shows the file name beside the project name, with a dot while there are unsaved changes, and the Save button’s tooltip names the target. Undoing back to the saved state clears the dot.

Save project as…

⇧⌘S / Shift+Ctrl+S. Always asks for a location and adopts the new file.

Reopen

After a reload, the File menu offers Reopen with the remembered file’s name. The browser asks for permission once; a file that has moved clears the entry. Unsaved changes are asked about first, as with Open project.

Leaving the page

The browser warns before closing only when there is unsaved work or a sound audition still pending, not for any project with content.

Tips

• If Save keeps asking for a new file in Brave, its file-system access is switched off; the About panel in Help explains how to turn it on, and Save then writes in place.
• The installed offline app opens .drtape files from a double-click and keeps the save permission across sessions.
• Keep old copies: Save as is cheap, and opening older projects adapts them to current instruments when the time comes.