Exporting musicxml

• Apr 14, 2018 - 10:08

I'm attempting to export a score to uncompressed musicxml format: In the export dialogue I select this format, enter a filename and a target directory and press the Save button. But the file is not created. Do I miss something about exporting to musicxml?

I'm using musescore 2.2.1 under Linux Mint 18.3 as installed and updated from the Mint repository.


Comments

That is how it works. Are you sure the file was not created? You are looking in the same directory you specified? Also, what language are you using? If not US English, it is possible the translations did not get updated properly and that can cause the association between the file types specified in the dialog and what actually gets created to be messed up. So go to Edit / Preferences and then Update Translations.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you so much for the hint on translations. I haven't ever changed that parameter. Its value was 'System', I suppose defined like that during the initial installation.

The export works now, but only if I let MuseScore set the extension '.musicxml', not '.xml' as set by me. Upon a thought I switched the language parameter back to 'System' and performed the musicxml export once again, letting MuseScore set the file extension. The export succeeded, also this time with the language parameter set to 'System'. So it looks like users are not allowed to decide another extension. If they do the export file is not created?

In reply to by reccmo

MusicXML is the new official extension, so we have moved to using that. And it does indeed seem that MuseScore won't let you specify an explicit XML extension. Actually, if you try any other extension, MuseScore happily takes it and adds ".musicxml" afterwards (so, specifying foo.bar yields foo.bar.musicxml). But for whatever reason, XML just silently fails. To me that's a bug, but maybe there was some reason for this?

In reply to by reccmo

We have seen PDF files with the extension changed to .mscz and other things such as this in an attempt to make the file open with MuseScore. These are done by inexperienced users who do not know what they are doing. MuseScore attempts to keep these users from doing something that will confuse them. You, as an experienced user, will have no problem renaming the file with the extension you want so IMHO, the current results are the best. (I'm another user like you). The only thing I would add is the option of selecting the .xml extension since so many other programs still do not understand the .musicxml extension.

In reply to by judeeylander

??? Nothing about the extension used (.xml vs .musicxml) should have any bearing whatsoever on accessibility or on the ability to include files within books.

That said, I have no trouble with providing the option of using the older extension for the sake of convenience when working with other older programs that cannot handle the current standards.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you, Marc. <3

The older programs that cannot handle current standards is the issue. It's a matter of accessibility for everyone. My personal goal is to make education accessible to any child in any third world country with a cell phone.

Education in developing countries is rarely free, but nearly everyone has access to a cell phone. My doctor friend in Karachi says, "Even dogs have cell phones on their backs."

And to quote Malala Yousafzai, "Terrorists aren't afraid of guns. They are afraid of a girl with a book."

In reply to by judeeylander

I get that older programs are an issue, but my point is, it's is trivially simple to rename the file in order to better support those older programs. Accessibility has a fairly specific meaning in the software world, and obeying the standards here while still allowing you to change the file name in order to support older programs is consistent with accessibility goals.

In reply to by judeeylander

What proprietary software do you mean? I'm confused. Do you mean the software for renaming files? That should be built in to your operating system.

In any case, I'm not making any decision here - I'm just explaining how to achieve the goal right now, while awaiting to see if some future version of MuseScore adds back the ability to specify the older extension directly and thus removes the need to spend those extra few seconds renaming the file. And I totally support seieng that capability added back.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you for your support! Awesome!

I'm not a software person. I'm barely a websurfer and software user. I apologize if I used proprietary incorrectly. I assumed .musicxml was something specific to MuseScore. Wikipedia has corrected me.

"MusicXML is an XML-based file format for representing Western musical notation. The format is open, fully documented, and can be freely used under the W3C Community Final Specification Agreement."

All new to me, a very low on the food chain person. I'll consult with Distributed Proofreaders music team to find out our preferred types of files going forwards.

Thanks again, Marc. :)

In reply to by judeeylander

You're welcome! Let me be more explicit here:

MusicXML is the name of the format and always has been, and it is not in any way proprietary. In the past, the people who develop the standards used to recommend that programs give files in this format the extension ".xml". However, a few months ago (as part of the MusicXML 3.1 specification) they changed their recommendation and asked people to start using ".musicxml" instead, I guess to avoid confusion with the hundreds of other types of XML files out there in the world. Whether we name the file ".musicxml" or ".xml", it's the exact same file. The people who control the standards just want everyone to starting call it by the new name. So that is exactly what we do, and presumably in the coming months everyone else who uses this format will follow suit.

In reply to by judeeylander

As far as I know that is up to your particular operating system. On Windows, for example, I believe the system uses "file associations" to choose an icon. So if you double click musicxml file, it asks you what program you want to use to open it, and whatever program you choose, that becomes the icon.

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