After footling around with time signatures to achieve RH in 6/4 and LH in 2/2 using hidden tuplets, amongst other things, I found that the bar numbers in the system track became incorrect — the system track was indicating a change of bar half way through a real measure for example. Restarted Dorico and that sorted itself out, but now there are no bar numbers in the system track at all. Copying and pasting into a new document does not change that, neither does adding a bar number change. The bar numbers on the score in engrave/page view are present and correct.
IIRC you need to make sure that at least one stave - preferably the top stave of the system - is using global time signatures. It may be that you’re using local time signatures everywhere.
Many thanks! Originally, I put the 6/4 time signatures individually on each stave with alt-enter in bar 2, so I could simply hide the LH one and fake the 2/2 with hidden tuplets. This works fine; I have copied that section into a duplicate flow and the bar numbers remain in the system track.
The problem seems to be in bar 26, where I have tried the same trick, changing the time signature to 4/4 on each stave individually and hiding it in the voice part to fake the free time section with a 6:4 tuplet, then going back to 6:4, again hiding it in the voice part after entering them individually with alt-enter. After doing that the bar numbers are incorrect and/or missing in the system track. That persists even if I delete all those bars and add them again. It was after trying this that they all vanished in my original file.
I think the problem you have is that you change the meter the other way round that we’re used to, with Dorico… If you need your voice and right hand of the piano to change to TS, change it the normal way. Only change individually the left hand, using shift M,TS*,x (it’s a pickup bar with x beats that will show TS* time sig, if you need), then bar 35 left hand, shift M, TS alt enter and hide, and use hidden tuplets. Not sure I’m really clear here, but if you take my steps in the long first answer, it should get you covered from any problem.
I tried your steps and that did indeed work fine, although the method I originally used – not using a pickup bar – also worked.
The problem later in this excerpt I seem to have solved by changing the order I did things. I started with global time signatures, entered everything, faked the time change with tuplets and THEN changed the time signatures to individual ones with alt-enter. The system track was no longer confused and shows bar numbers correctly. Interesting problem, and I have learnt a few new tricks.
Yes, that’s the trick. Thanks for sharing your experience, this way we know what does work and what causes problems — unless the team decides to go back to that part and make both workflows seemlessly working
