Hide empty staves = Instrument

• Oct 12, 2020 - 16:54

Refer to #9922: Disable Hide Empty Staves option for scores with one staff. This is basically a request for grand staves to be made visible together. At some point in version 3 Instrument was added as an option for Hide when empty. It works if you have a note in one of the staves but if it is the only instrument available and is an empty staff, only the top staff set to instrument or auto is shown. If these are set to instrument then they should always show both staves if one is shown. Thoughts?


Comments

I agree. When "Hide When Empty" is set to "Instrument" for a grand staff, if one of its staves is visible then all of its staves should be visible. This should be true regardless of whether the instrument is alone in the score. The fact that this is not currently the case suggests there is a bug either in this feature, or the "Hide Empty Staves" feature, or both.

I had made a few screen copies before, planning to ask a question later, and I wonder if at least one of them is now useful in this discussion.

In the screen copy below, in measures 5 through 8, only one stave of the piano is visible. The other piano stave is empty. The label (Pno.) disappeared:
PianoBarMissing-II.png

I had expected that either both staves of the piano are visible, or neither. That's why, when I first saw this, and for a short moment, I wondered if the stave of the singer and the one stave of the piano were the two staves of the piano. (No, they're not.)

I think I can do without the general setting "Hide When Empty" if I can select something like this per stave or per instrument.

Under "Staff Properties" I found "Do not hide if system is empty". I always get confused if there are two settings, at different locations in the menu, that do comparable things, but not exactly the same. That's why I don't mind to forget about the general "Hide When Empty" all together and to select the right option for "Hide when empty" per stave separately.

Most of all, I hope that this screen copy is a useful illustration.

In reply to by barencor

The disappearing label is a problem that has been fixed. I'm not sure which version is was fixed in but in the 3.5.1 I'm using it has been fixed and I seem to remember it being fixed in 3.5 also.

As for the entire instrument being hidden or nothing, this may make sense for a piano with 2 staves, but there are other situations where this is not the case. One example is the piano score I'm currently working on the has between 2 & 4 staves and I always want at least 2 staves visible. I also have been known to use multiple staves on one instrument for divisi string staves and I only want the additional staves visible when they have notes.

The point of all of this is that we need options. Hide empty staves in the style menu is the most common solution so the more advanced (or rarer) situation is accounted for in staff/part properties.

Also, the property in staff/part properties is "Hide when empty" and has a choice or Auto, Always, Never and Instrument.

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