More control over which measures are consider empty for the sake of "hide empty staves"
The "Hide empty staves" function doesn't hide staves containing only invisible notes. But when creating cue notes you are adding invisible notes, thereby preventing the staff to be hidden. Very problematic because, if an instrument is silent for many bars, you often both want to hide it from the score and give him cue notes before re-entering. Cue notes will cause the staff to show earlier than intended (see image). Marked as a "major" issue because it effectively prevents from making independent layout choices in score and parts, which is fundamental.
Suggest adding an option to the "Hide empty staves" function:
- Hide emptys staves (default: off)
Don't hide empty svates in first system (default: off)
Always show bracked for single staff (default: off)
Hide staves with only invisble notes (default: off for old scores, for backwards compatibility, but on for new scores)
Only current workaround: double each instrument on two staves, one intended for the score (without cue notes), on intended for the part (with cue notes). Possible, but very cumbersome.
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Comments
This isn't a bug - it's sometimes good that invisible notes prevent a staff from hiding (some use this for that very purpose!). But indeed, it would also be good to have better support for cue notes, and to have the fact they are cues - not just the fact that they are invisible - be the trigger. Such a feature could possibly also include a way to link the cues to the source staff, automatically make them silent, etc. See for instance [#317227].
As per discussion in forum, though, I'll leave this open as a suggestion for a new feature specifically relating just to invisible notes (eg, style setting "consider staves with only invisible notes to be empty"). I'd still rather see a "real" cue solution, but solving this problem in the interim could still be worthwhile.
Although if we go that route, maybe best to also consider solving the problem that people for which do actually use invisible notes, or white/transparent text: forcing a measure not to hide even though it is otherwise empty. I've previously proposed a "not empty" element that can be added from the palette to mark a measure not empty. Maybe there should be a corresponding "yes empty" element you add to force cue measures to be considered empty? Would be easier than marking them invisible. And might be useful for other purposes. And would allow for both types of invisible notes in the same score.
Not a duplicate as far as I can tell (and [#317227] is https://musescore.org/en/node/317227, which I fail to see to be related?)
Hi Marc, thanks for replying here and on the Forum. True: direct cue support would be totally awesome but it's miles away. Instead, a small addition to the "Hide empty staves" function would be a low-cost, immediate fix, and probably worthwhile in general. Plus, if you default the function to consider measures containing only hidden notes as empty, it will gradually stop people from using the hidden-note-trick as a "not empty" flag. Which is by the way a horrible workaround: it only applies if you don't make parts, cause in case of parts the hidden notes will break all your multimeasure rests. The transparent text workaround is much more elegant, and it could be embedded as an official "not empty" flag variable. Maybe, as you suggested, creating a "yes empty" object would be an even quicker and simple fix, this depends on the code structure, really.
And sorry, but invisible notes should behave like they aren't there, that's the whole point, so the fact that staves are not hidden in case of invisible notes is quite illogical to me. It seems to me like one of those cases when something works wrongly, but people get so used to it that they start relying on it to keep working wrongly ;)
Thanks for fixing the status, and I guess pasted the wrong link for the related issue about cues.
As for the “whole point” of invisible notes, as I said, there are multiple uses for this feature, and for some it makes sense to consider the staff empty, others not. So see my comment about what I believe to be an elegant, simple, and more flexible/powerful solution to the problem of wanting measures to be considered empty or not independent of their actual contents.