Hiding stave also hides chord symbols
I know other (expensive) notation programs behave this way also, so it's not unexpected.
I attach chord symbols to rests in the top stave of the system and, if that stave is hidden, the chord symbols are hidden too.
This observation also applies to nightly builds.
So, this is a 'feature request' that chord symbols will remain visible even if the stave is hidden.
I suppose I can attach the chord symbols to a different stave that is visible in every system. Is that what others do?
Comments
This is where the system properties of chord symbols would fit into place, see #28476: Chord symbols with System flag set do not transpose when propagated to parts
My workaround is to add the chord symbols to the remaining visible top staff
In reply to This is where the system by Jojo-Schmitz
I realize from the use case you describe in that issue report that the System flag would provide a partial workaround for that particular case (albeit only if the top staff always happens to be a concert pitch instrument, and only if you do not intend to ever extract parts). But it doesn't help at all with the general case - an actual guitar part on which you have placed chord symbols but nothing else. The real workaround is to simply place some invisible notes in that part, so they guitar part is never hidden. or better yet, use slash notation - guitar players might be quite confused by measures with nothing but rests in them but also chord symbols.
That said, it would be pretty easy to make chord symbols prevent a staff from being hidden. We could do the same for staff text, dynamics, or other annotations. That would solve the general case, but still not do anything for the special use case you describe where there is no actual guitar part.
In reply to I realize from the use case by Marc Sabatella
I've been playing with a number of demos that offer the empty stave hiding option and, so far, I haven't found one that doesn't wind up hiding stuff that shouldn't be hidden if the stave on top goes blank.
Sibellius "cheats" by refusing to hide an empty stave if it has chord symbols attached to it.
So I have no reason to complain.
I'll just PDF it, load it into Inkscape, and hack it until it suits me.
In reply to Is there ANY program that does it "right?" by RAMALAM
The goal is that hacking PDF's should never be necessary. Certainly not for anything that isn't extraordinarily non-standard. So perhaps you could explain in more detail what exactly you want to have happen, and we can come up with a way to make it so?
As I said, making MuseScore refuse to hide a staff if it has chord symbols would presumably be easy, if we all agreed it was the right thing to do. I'm not sure why you call that "cheating" - it seems like it's correct behavior to me. "Empty" from my perspective should mean just that - no content whatsoever. So any content at all - whether notes, rests, chord symbol, dynamics, etc - should prevent the staff from being hidden, I think.
From what I understand of what Jojo is trying to do, though, fixing this wouldn't actually help him - he is trying to not have a guitar staff at all. And if all you want to do is have a staff not be hidden, that's easy - place an invisible note on it. *Way* easier than hacking a PDF. And as of last week, the experimental development builds for 2.0 also add an option to never hide any given staff. So that would be another way to make sure chord symbols don't disappear when you hide empty staves - if that's really what you are trying to make happen.
So again, could you please explain in more detail what you actually want to see happen?
In reply to The goal is that hacking by Marc Sabatella
I think I get it - you want an invisible staff but where the chord symbols still show. If MuseScore support zero-line staves, this would be doable, I think.
In reply to I realize from the use case by Marc Sabatella
Not hiding the (otherwise empty) stave isn't cutting it, 'hide empty staves' is about saving space.
If I have e.g. a stave with notes for flute, b-clarinet and SA/TB and additionally need chord symbols for guitar/bass (or even for an improvising pianst), but no notes nor rythm for them, I'd attach them to the topmost stave, most likely the flute, maybe b-clarinet (and then without transposing!). And if that is silent for a while, I currently have to attach them to e.g soprano for that while. Pretty cumbersome.
Creating parts, one for SATB and another for the instrumentalists, then leaves the chord symbols missing on the instrumentalists sheets.
If the system flag for chords would work the same as for segno, that chord symbols would always show in the topmost stave.
In reply to Not hiding the (otherwise by Jojo-Schmitz
Yes, I understand that for your particular use case, not hiding the otherwise empty staves doesn't help. But it does help other use cases that might fall under the title of this thread, such as the user who wanted an actual guitar staff with no notes (just rests) but still displays the chords. I now understand that this is not the use case either of you two had in mind, but still, it's good to know that this use case *can* now be handled via the new "Never hide" option.