OnSong^® Binder (aka Your Digital Security Blanket)

The OnSong^® Binder file format is how OnSong plays musical chairs with your songs, sets, & whole books between libraries. Like the OnSong^® Archive it's got everything you need to resurrect your content somewhere else — the song text, attachments, styles, settings, transposition & annotations — except instead of one giant mystery blob, a binder is just a folder of boring normal files. Which means it's readable, inspectable, & can carry all the media your song's clingin' to in a way that doesn't care what device you're on.

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 ID, holdin':

• manifest.json — the item itself, all serialized & fancy. Every single thing OnSong knows about it, in the exact same shape the OnSong web API throws at ya.
• Its file, if it's got one. An attachment keeps its original filename, so a PDF or MP3 inside a binder is literally just that PDF or MP3.
• Folders for its babies, named after what they are — songs, attachments — each one holdin' more folders that look exactly the same.

That structure keeps goin' & goin' like the Energizer Bunny: a set's got songs, a song's got attachments, & each one's a folder with 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. ZOMG, consistency!

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

What It's Packin'

• Songs — the chord chart & literally everything stuck to it.
• Sets — the songs in their proper order, with the set's own arrangement vibe.
• Books — a whole dang collection.
• Attachments — PDFs, images, audio, & whatever other file is besties with a song. You can cherry-pick just the attachments you're actually usin' instead of hoardin' every version ever added.

Binder Or Archive? (The Thrilling Showdown)

Both will faithfully yeet your library's content back & forth, so it's really about what you need from the file:

• OnSong^® Archive is the old-timey format, & it's what you're stuck with if you're tryna be cool with earlier versions of OnSong.
• OnSong^® Binder is the shiny new hotness. Use it for spreadin' the love with newer versions of OnSong — & especially when you want a file you can actually poke around inside.

Importin' & Exportin' (AKA The Fun Part)

Binders import like any other file does: yank one from Files, Mail, AirDrop, or your cloud service & tap OnSong. Importin' a binder that's holdin' a set recreates that set & every song in it; importin' one with a single song just adds that one song to your collection.

To make one, hit Share & pick OnSong Binder as the format. Boom. Done.

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

Because a binder is a ZIP of plain JSON & ordinary media files, it's literally the format you reach for when you wanna see what OnSong actually squirreled away — or when somethin' needs to read your content & it ain't OnSong.