Exclude/Instrument Instrument Function, etc.
I have been working on transcribing pieces for full orchestra lately and have run into an issue. On modern study scores, the publisher will exlude inactive instruments on each page. I have tried the "hide empty staves" function, but it messes up all brackets and lines that I put into the score. If there were a function that lets you switch on and off which instruments are present on each page it would save alot of unnecessary room on full orchestral scores, especially in the percussion section where the parts are played sparingly and spread wide apart. Also, another usefull addition would be the ability to combine instruments together during passages where several different parts are playing in unison. For example, if Trumpets I and II are playing the same part, on study scores they will notate the staff as Trumpet I,II; then will return it to the seperate Trumpets I and II when the parts split back. Thank you very much for your time!
-Jack Langdon
Comments
I think these are all good suggestions. I would note though, that Hide Empty Staves really *is* a way to accomplish this. If the brackets and lines are messed up, that's a bug. Pretty much a known bug, at least with respect to brackets - but you might want to post an example of what you mean with respect to lines. Then hopefully the next version can fix these bugs. But still, the ability to manually hide or unhide staves would be nice in addition, I'd agree.
Hide Empty Staves is also how you'd get the combined trumpet part. Just have a third staff for the trumpets labelled "trumpets I & II", which would be empty except when they are in unison, so it would normally be hidden. And the trumpet I and trumpet II staves would be hidden when you are using the third staff, so they will be hidden. Produces exactly thr effect you are describing. The idea of having all staves represented in the program all the time but hidden when not needed might seem an odd way to do it, but I suspect it simplifies the implementation, as all other programs I know of work that same way.
In reply to I think these are all good by Marc Sabatella
Thank you very much Marc. I like your suggestion for combining parts and that will work perfectly fine for me. And as for what I mean by lines, I'm referring to slurs, ties, crescendos, decrescendos, octave above and below markings, etc. I would be ecstatic if those bugs were to be fixed in the next release. Thanks you for the speedy reply and the suggestions.
In reply to Thank you very much Marc. I by Jack Langdon
As always, a sample score and specific instructions to reproduce whatever problems you are seeing with lines would be helpful to the developers, I'm sure. Have you checked to see if there are any existing reports in the Issue tracker (link at right of this page)?