OnSong^® Binder (AKA Your Digital Sheet Music Shenanigans)

The OnSong^® Binder file format is how OnSong plays hot potato with your songs, setlists, & entire libraries between devices. Like the OnSong^® Archive it's got ALL the good stuff — song text, attachments, styles, settings, transposition, your random scribbles — but instead of being one big locked mystery box, a binder is just a folder full of normal files y'all can actually peek inside. Plot twist: that makes it readable, inspectable, & able to haul the media your song needs around with it, no platform drama required.

The OnSong^® Binder file format rocks a file extension of either .onsongbinder or .binder, & a MIME type of application/onsong-binder.

What's Hiding in There

A binder is basically a ZIP file on steroids. Unzip one & boom — you'll find a folder named after the item's ID, holdin':

• manifest.json — the whole item, spilled out. Every single thing OnSong knows about it, in the exact same format our fancy-pants web API uses.
• Its actual file, if there is one. Attachments keep their OG filename, so a PDF or MP3 sittin' inside a binder is literally just that PDF or MP3. Wild, right?
• Folders for its babies, named after what they are — songs, attachments — each one packed with more folders in the exact same setup.

This nesting situation goes ALL the way down: a set holds songs, a song holds attachments, & each one gets its own manifest chillin' next to its own files. A binder with two hundred songs looks exactly like a binder with one lonely chart. Same vibe.

Inside a manifest, references to the kids get marked with a $binder. prefix, so a reader can actually tell the difference between a value that lives in the item & one that's pointin' to a folder next to it.

What It Lugs Around

• Songs — the chord chart & literally everything stuck to it.
• Sets — the songs in order, with the set's own special sauce arrangement.
• Books — your whole collection of stuff.
• Attachments — PDFs, images, audio, whatever file you threw at a song. You can be picky & only include attachments actually in use instead of every version you ever added & then forgot about.

Binder Or Archive? The Ultimate Showdown

Both will faithfully bring back a library's content, so it's really about what you're tryna do:

• OnSong^® Archive is the old-school format. Use this if you're hangin' with ancient versions of OnSong & need them to play nice.
• OnSong^® Binder is the new hotness. Use it when you're chillin' with newer OnSong — & especially when you want a file you can actually crack open & snoop inside.

Importin' & Exportin' Like a Boss

Binders import just like any other file: grab one from Files, Mail, AirDrop, or your cloud thingamajig & pick OnSong. Importin' a binder that's holdin' a set? Boom — recreates the set & every song in it. Importin' one with a single song? That song gets added. Easy peasy.

To make one, hit Share & choose OnSong Binder as your format.

Binders are also what OnSong Connect yeets between devices when one device is like "yo gimme that song or setlist" — so the same format chillin' in your Files app is the exact same format bouncin' around on the network.

Because a binder is literally just a ZIP full of plain JSON & regular ol' media files, it's your go-to when you wanna see what OnSong actually squirreled away — or when somethin' else needs to read your content & it ain't OnSong.