I am trying to create a Map editor in 3ds Max using Maxscript, but the language for me is incredibly hard to understand and the reference guide seems incoherent so it serves basically no purpose for me, so i was wondering if someone could please explain to me how to a) read/write to binary files in MaxScript, which will be opened using fstream in c++ and b) how to get the currently applied texture or diffuse color of an object in the scene. thanx

MaxScript is okay for quick one-off scripts, but for larger things like exporters it is an absolutely horrible language. I wrote a MaxScript exporter exactly once, and I would not care to repeat the experience. Writing the exporter in C++ using the SDK will produce much better results (and there's lots and lots of support for it on sparks).