Bug with blank stave suppression on first page

• Sep 25, 2020 - 14:51

I recently posted a comment on the Musescore.com site about the behaviour of scores played directly from that site within a browser.

For completeness I reverted back to the Musescore program on my MacOS system, and I noticed that while the Format->Style then "Hide empty staves within systems" feature works well, the Format->Style "Don't hide empty staves in first system", which works if the box is checked, suppresses the first page completely if it is not checked.

This seems like a definite bug to me.

If blank staves are suppressed on the first page - assuming this is fixed, it would still be good to have a text line/label for each instrument, so that the instruments needed are visible.

Comments

• Sep 25, 2020 - 15:02

But the whole point of suppressing them on the first system is to have those instruments not show up as well.

And if you want them to show up, why not show their empty staves as well? It'd take probably an equal amount of vertical space anyway...
Or you can go into the measure properties for those measure and mark them invisible.

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 15:11

There's a big difference between suppresing the white space and suppressing the details of the missing instruments. Also, you are indeed correct that I could probably go in and adjust the measure properties, but if the "bug" which I have mentioned is fixed, there would be no need to do that. I still think this is an undesirable feature, but maybe you like it. Why make things extra difficult by making users have to do more work?

Vertical space for score following is quite often a problem. I stick by my original statements.

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 15:41

I'm not proposing putting instrument names against white space, and in any case just because you haven't seen a score with that, doesn't mean it wouldn't be a viable proposition.

Standard Musescore produces about 15 staves per A4 page - thats about 26 cm vertical.
15 lines of text is about 7.5cm vertical - obviously depending on font size, but I tested this.
In any case it wouldn't be absolutely necessary to have every "invisible" instrument on its own line. One could list a hundred instruments on about 5 lines if space were a problem.

In my experience, which is limited I'll admit, it's very helpful to suppress blank staves throughout much of a score, particlarly if trying to follow it while it's playing, but if the first page is missing then one can't even see what the instruments are. OTOH why bother to show a whole band/orchestra full of staves if the only instruments on the first page are double basses and piccolo?

This is helpful when trying to follow scores on a computer screen or tablet, and if on paper - well it saves paper, which I suppose we all now know is often a good thing.

Oh - I overlooked one thing too, which is in the piccolo/double bass example I mentioned previously, blanking out the first page would actually lose bars of music, whether or not the unused staves were blanked - so it is a bug.

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 16:26

"just because you haven't seen a score with that, doesn't mean it wouldn't be a viable proposition." Well, yes - I have perhaps lead a sheltered life - but that argument could be made for all sorts of non-standard notation and practices. I am not saying what you are proposing is non-standard, just pointing out that I haven't seen it used in published scores and asking if your experience differs. If some minority practice is missing from MuseScore's capabilities there is a chance that someone will feel inclined to implement it. If that minority is only one then unless it is that "one" that implements it the chances are lower.

You say that Muse Score can accommodate only 15 staves per A4 page. That is only true if you use the default stave scaling of 1.764 mm per stave space. While that is a good size for individual parts it is common practice to use smaller sizes for scores. My concert band scores often have 24 instrument staves on an A4 page with stave space = 0.85 mm.

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 15:43

It is not a bug as in "the thing does what it was designed to do". And I use it as such, often.

For example in vocal scores, where the accompaniment starts first, or even the solist does and the choir only comes into play later. I never want to show the instrument names of those things when their staves are hidden.
Either it is clear from the title of the work, or the title page mentions which instruments are used in an more vertically optimized way anyhow.

I'm just very curious to what you think you'll be saving by what you're requesting. Or I'm not understanding the request as you intend it :)

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 15:52

"Don't hide empty staves in first system", which works if the box is checked, suppresses the first page completely if it is not checked.

You are not using version 3.5 or this wouldn't be an issue. In some version before 3.5 a single staff was made to always be visible. If there is a staff with the Hide when empty is set to never it will ALWAYS be visible. If there are not staves with Hide when empty is set to never, the first instrument will be visible. You never get empty systems any more.

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 17:54

I am using version 3.5 - to be precise 3.5.0.28537 Revision 43c5553

I made some test files, and while they didn't work quite as I expected, they did work OK, with bar numbers in the correct places. So yes - things work - sometimes, but not always - keep reading.

I'm not too bothered about the labelling of the instruments right now. I am concerned about chunks of music going missing. If you look at the score for Summit by Ryan Zhu which was put up today, you may find that bars 1-7 disappear completely if the boxes are ticked one way or the other. The first visible bar is bar 8. Bars 1-7 are not empty. If the full score option is chosen all the bars appear including blank staves.

This is what alerted me to an issue in the first place.

Attachment Size
Summit.mscz 2.94 MB

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• Sep 25, 2020 - 18:17

This is due to a mistake made by the person who uploaded the score. It is attached to measure 1 of the flute part rather than put in a frame with a page break to make sure the image stays on it's page and the staves start on page 2. Hide empty staves works as expected.

I didn't make this clear. The first system is under the picture. It's not being hidden by MuseScore.

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