OnSong^® Binder (aka Your Digital Crutch)

The OnSong^® Binder file format is basically OnSong's way of yeeting a song, a set, or your entire book of stuff between libraries. Like the OnSong^® Archive, it's got everything you need to rebuild your content somewhere else — the song text, attachments, styles, settings, transposition & annotations — but unlike an archive (which is one big mystery blob), a binder is literally just a folder of regular files. Wild, right? That means it's readable, inspectable, & can carry all the media your song depends on right alongside the song itself, all platform-agnostic & whatever.

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

What's Lurkin' Inside

A binder is a ZIP archive. Unzip that bad boy & you'll find a folder named after the item's identifier, holdin':

• manifest.json — the item itself, all serialized & stuff. Every property OnSong knows about it, in the exact same shape the OnSong web API uses. Basically our cheat sheet.
• Its file, if it has one. An attachment keeps its original filename, so a PDF or an MP3 sittin' in a binder is literally just that PDF or MP3. No weird compression nonsense.
• Folders for its children, named after what they actually are — songs, attachments — each holdin' more folders of exactly the same shape.

That structure just keeps goin' & goin' like the Energizer Bunny: a set contains songs, a song contains attachments, & each one's got its own manifest chillin' next to its own files. A binder holdin' a book of two hundred songs? Same format as one holdin' a single chart. We're consistent. Shocking, we know.

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

What It Can Haul

• Songs — the chord chart & literally everything attached to it.
• Sets — the songs in their order, with the set's own arrangement because apparently you're picky.
• Books — a whole collection. All your stuff.
• Attachments — PDFs, images, audio, & any other file you decided a song needed. You can pick to include only the attachments actually in use instead of every version you ever added. Groundbreaking.

Binder Or Archive?

Both round-trip your library's content without messin' it up, so it's really just about what you need from the file:

• OnSong^® Archive is the older format, & it's what you use if you wanna stay buds with earlier versions of OnSong. Nostalgia, baby.
• OnSong^® Binder is the new hotness. Use it for sharin' with newer versions of OnSong — & especially when you want a file you can actually crack open & peek inside. Revolutionary.

Importin' & Exportin'

Binders import like any other file because we're not total goofballs: open one from Files, Mail, AirDrop, or whatever cloud service you're into & pick OnSong. Importin' a binder that holds a set? Boom — recreates the set & every song in it. Importin' one with a single song? Boom — adds that song. Easy-peasy.

To create one, hit Share & pick OnSong Binder as your format. Done.

Binders are also what OnSong Connect sends between devices when one device's like "hey, can I get that song or set?" — so the same format chillin' in your Files app is the exact one cruisin' over the network. Neat!

Because a binder is literally just a ZIP of plain JSON & ordinary media files, it's the format to grab when you need to actually see what OnSong stored — or when somethin' else needs to read your content & it ain't OnSong.