Review requested for MusicXML media type proposals

[Mark Baker]

On 6/8/07, Michael Good <musicxml at yahoo.com> wrote:
> All MusicXML software to date uses and relies on the .xml suffix, so that
> cannot change. If we were starting off new, we would have more flexibility. One
> benefit of the compressed format is that we can add our own special .mxl
> suffix, which over time will help the usability of these files.

Ah, I see.  In that case, I agree that ".xml" should be listed.

I'd still recommend specifying a new file extension though, enabling
new software, or new versions of existing software, to support it when
they can.  I'm quite certain that your users will ask for it
eventually, once they discover that multiple applications on their
desktop are competing for who gets the message when a ".xml" file is
double-clicked.

Also, as another data point along these lines, when XML files are
delivered as "application/xml", many recipients (including all
browsers except IE) use the namespace of the root element to do
follow-on dispatching[1].  As MusicXML doesn't use namespaces, it
won't work well with those recipients when delivered as
application/xml.

 [1] http://www.markbaker.ca/2004/01/XmlDispatchTest//

Mark.