Hiding Empty Staves Until Needed
Hi!
I'm trying to hide empty staves in an orchestra score until the parts first enter and then have them remain visible after that.
E.g. The beginning of the piece is exclusively piano and strings, and I want to hide the brass and woodwind staves until they come in much later.
Current methods I've found so far on the forums would require me to mark each individual measure as 'Never Hide' before using Style>Hide Empty Staves. This would take impossibly long, as there are hundreds upon hundreds of them.
I tried highlighting all measures I wanted to stay visible, right-clicked>Staff Properties>Never Hide, but this only applied to the measure I right clicked, not all of the highlighted ones.
Comments
I think you are misunderstanding the instructions. First, "never hide" is on the staff level, not the measure level - there is no way to do it measure by measure even if you wanted to. But you shouldn't need to. Simply going to Format / Style / Score and enabling the "hide empty staves" option (and possibly disabling the accompanying option to not hide on first system) should be sufficient. In other words, you don't have to tell MuseScore which measures to hide and which not to - hide empty staves does this automatically,. by checking for itself to see which are empty.
In reply to I think you are… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the response! I tried simply using that option, and it almost accomplishes what I what.
But then it hides staves in places I don't want them hidden.
Is there a way to not hide specific staves, despite them being completely empty?
E.g. The bassoon staves are hidden for the first half of a piece, which is wanted. Then, a system contains piano, strings, and a bassoon as it enters. The next system contains just piano and strings, since the bassoon part is silent, but I need the empty staves of the bassoon there present, without making them reappear in the first half of the piece.
Kind of solved with experimenting, but I would still love a better solution if there is one.
This solution is kind of distracting and took a hefty amount of time to apply everywhere I wanted it.
Placed a note in the 2nd voice with 'pppppp' dynamic, deleted extra rests in 2nd voice, hid everything, and copied to every empty measure I wanted to stay visible. Looks just like an empty measure, and makes practically no sound.
![Screenshot (500).png]( "Screenshot (500).png")
Then after hiding staves, I removed all but the first measure in each system, since only one measure needs something to keep the entire staff.
Had to go back and reset the dynamics from pppppp depending on which part it was for (In the picture, it was set back to mp)
In reply to Kind of solved with… by Brandi_Reeves
That's the general idea - placing something invisible and silent to prevent a measure from being hidden. It should be simpler than how you tried it though. To silence the note, just uncheck "play" in the Inspector.
Eventually we'd like an element you can place from the palette to do the job more simply still. Some people use staff text set to white for this.
In reply to That's the general idea -… by Marc Sabatella
I use a transparent staff text for such a purpose.
@OP; see attached example, staff properties for both Piano staves have been changed to Hide when "Instrument" and the transparent staff text was added to the Alto in m7 (select the measure to see the staff text) as well as for the Soloist in m7 of the 2nd section.
You can Ctrl+Shift+Drag that staff text into your palettes for easier reuse. Then edit the palette cell properties to change the name and show staff lines, so you're not looking at an empty palette cell:
![325418-showme-in-palette.png]( "325418-showme-in-palette.png")
In reply to I use a transparent staff… by jeetee
Why? The S/A, T/B, T/L, B/B staff texts are also invisble (in score/printout) but are visible (grey) in the palette.
Ah: transparent staff text, not invisble (which would lead to the staff to be seen as being empty)
(See? Sooner or later even I get it)
In reply to Why? The S/A, T/B, T/L staff… by Jojo-Schmitz
The "Ah" is the spot on answer as to the "Why?": Invisible staff text is considered "empty" for the staff and thus doesn't force the display of it.
In reply to The "Ah" is the spot on… by jeetee
All this workaround would be alleviated by a measure-level "hide override" flag. Could this be requested as an enhancement?
In reply to All this workaround would be… by Ali Wood
It sure could ;-)
In reply to It sure could ;-) by Jojo-Schmitz
Guess that's a separate thread
In reply to Guess that's a separate… by Ali Wood
Or directly in the issue tracker. as a Suggestion
In reply to All this workaround would be… by Ali Wood
I'd personally rather see it as a special palette element, like a break - much easier to add in a single click than if it's in a dialog.
In reply to I'd personally rather see it… by Marc Sabatella
Have suggested it as suggested....
In reply to Have suggested it as… by Ali Wood
Thanks for #325448: Unhiding empty bars
In reply to I use a transparent staff… by jeetee
I couldn't get this to work. I opened your score and mine at the same time. (The new palette cell actually appeared as soon as I opened your example - so what's the idea of Ctrl Shift and Drag to my score?).
Anyway I applied the new cell to a measure on an empty Bass line in my score (having set Hide empty staves to No), then hid the empty staves, but the line still vanished.
In reply to I couldn't get this to work… by Ali Wood
In order to understand and assist, we would need you to attach the specific score you are having trouble with, and describe more precisely what you are doing, what you expect to see happen, and what happens instead.
Note that palette cells don't create themselves - new palette cells are only created when you go out of your way to do so, by dragging something from another palette or Ctrl+Shift+dragging something from your score. So my guess is, whatever cell you are seeing without Ctrl+Shift+dragging anything to your palette, that's something that was already present and is not related to what is being discussed here. In order to make use of the technique discussed here, you do need to follow the process already described.
In reply to In order to undersatdn and… by Marc Sabatella
OK, again, here is what I did, and the score is attached. Grey Mare's Tail 101.50.mscz
I opened my score.
Additionally I opened the example score alongside my score.
As soon as I did that, the new cell appeared in the series of text palettes.
So I couldn't understand why I would be asked use CTRL-SHIFT and drag if the cell was already there!?
BUT, to make doubly sure, I deleted it first from the palette cell area, then CTRL SHIFT and dragged it afresh to the palette area.
All throughout this process, there was only one palette visible, which I assume operates for both of the files that are open?
I dragged the new cell onto my score, which it accepted.
I then hid empty staves...
No joy. The stave disappeared.
Here is the file.
The bar in question is bar 63
In reply to OK, again, here is what I… by Ali Wood
Again, under no circumstances would a palette cell ever add itself unless you do so explicitly. So, opening the example score could not possibly have affected your palette. Whatever you saw and deleted there was unrelated. So, when you created the new cell, what element specifically did you Ctrl+Shift+drag to the palette?
And yes, MuseScore has but a single palette.
Anyhow, when I open your score, I see a "staff type change" in bar 63 on the bottom staff, but that's not what you were supposed to add. Instead, you were supposed to have added staff text. In the provided example score from @jeetee, the staff text in question is in the Alto staff in bar 7. When you select that measure, you should see the text "showme" appear (it's transparent so it doesn't show until you select it). That is what you are supposed to Ctrl+Shift+drag to your palette, and that ios what you are supposed to then add to your score.
In reply to Again, under no… by Marc Sabatella
Eureka. It worked this time. Thank you very much for your patience. Roll on the day when something equivalent becomes part of the standard package (which we know has been requested - but I couldn't wait any longer and was making do with putting in hidden rests.) Thank you. Don't know where the staff type change crept in?! Maybe I selected the bar and dragged the whole bar to the palette?