Temporary staves in version 3
Question asked in https://musescore.org/en/3.0beta#comment-872352
What is a temporary/cutaway staff?
This is an easier way to create an ossia. Insert the notes in the measures you want to use as an ossia and check "Cutaway" in staff properties and only the measures with notes will be shown. You can put the notes in various measures and have multiple ossias if you need them.
Comments
I want to make a distinction here:
Temporary staff - a staff that only appears on some systems. For example, in an orchestra score, maybe you want the flute parts on a single staff for most of the score but to split to two staves in just one section. This was possible only with considerable effort in 2.x (Enable "Hide empty staves" in Style / General, then enable "Never hide" in Staff Properties for every single other staff; reverse this whole process if you want to then create an actual consensed score with hide empty staves serving its normal function). For 3.0, it's as easy as setting "Hide when empty" to "Always" in Staff Properties for the desired temporary staff. Now you have a staff that appears only when needed, independent of the global "Hide empty staves" setting, so your temporary staff remains temporary as you easily toggle between full and condensed score.
Cutaway staff - a staff where the empty measures do not display at all, even within a system (eg, for ossia, but also for what are popularly called "cutaway scores"). Again, possible with extreme effort in 2.x (lots and lots of right clicking and setting individual measures to invisible), but now just a matter of setting the "Cutaway" option in Staff Properties.
In reply to Temporary staff - a staff… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks -- that's what I was hoping to hear (although I would like an explicit "hide"/"don't hide"/"staff default" MEASURE property (i.e., not depending upon whether it had notes in it)).
In reply to Thanks -- that's what I was… by [DELETED] 1831606
Could you explain that in more detail? There is already the "visible" flag for measures in Measure Properties, you mean something different form this? Can you explain the use case? We tried to cover the common ones.
In reply to Could you explain that in… by Marc Sabatella
it's really a "system" attribute, just like the spacers that only apply to the system to which you apply them. I want to see a certain part in a given system, whether or not it has notes it in that system (maybe it will have notes in the next system). Maybe this really isn't coherent, and I have to think about it more....
In reply to it's really a "system"… by [DELETED] 1831606
Perhaps you mean the option to show a system if it has notes or not? This allows you to fill blank space with empty staves so a page doesn't look so empty.
In reply to Perhaps you mean the option… by mike320
That sounds like a fair description of what I'm thinking (if you mean per staff per system, although per-system would be useful, too).
I guess my use case is the "books" I have endeavored to write and post here, that have frame-separated snippets with variable numbers of staves, which are very hard to make right now for want of such a thing.
In reply to That sounds like a fair… by [DELETED] 1831606
Yes, I meant ...staff in a system...
In reply to it's really a "system"… by [DELETED] 1831606
Real world use case would help. The problem with attaching anything to a "system" is that systems change as the music changes - a change in one the previous page might change which measures on which systems on this page, etc. So in general, we just don't have things attached to systems directly, only to specific measures. And as mentioned, you can already mark specific measures invisible. If you mean, you want to mark some specific measure as "not empty" so it doesn't cause the staff to be hidden on whatever system it belongs to, right now an invisible note is the way to do it. I totally support a magic "not empty" marker you could add just for this purpose. Although I'm still at a loss to think of a real world use case where you'd want an otherwise empty staff to appear on a given system if you don't want it to appear on other systems.
In reply to Real world use case would… by Marc Sabatella
... and I just realized this is actually already quite easy in 3.0. Unlike 2.x, 3.0 will consider a staff not empty if it contains a staff text - even an invisible one. So, to force staff visible that would otherwise be hidden because it is empty, just add an invisible text. Easier than adding an invisible silent note. We could even add such an entry to the palette, or you could do it yourself via a custom palette.
In reply to ... and I just realized this… by Marc Sabatella
When using the "Cutaway" option in Staff properties, the initial barline of the mesure (for an Ossia) of the hidden staff, disappears too. It's a shame: better to "close" the ossia with two barlines.
I can fake a barline (via Special characters, resizable and reusable) - image below.
Edit: or other workaround: add a barline to a note belonging to this ossia and move it with offsets.
But can we do better (without this workaround) and who would have escaped me?
In reply to When using the "Cutaway"… by cadiz1
See #281639: Cutaway staves - better handling of clefs, barlines and brackets (suggestion) and feel free to weigh in there