Can't hide empty staff

I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’m following what you think the bug is. It’s true that if you set chord symbols to appear between the two staves of the piano that you cannot hide only one staff of the piano, but that’s not a bug (in the sense that a bug is a behaviour that is unexpected; it is expected, if unhelpful, that both staves of the piano will appear if chord symbols are set to appear between the staves).

I know that chords will show two staves with that setting, but why is any Piano staff showing there at all? There is nothing at all in the Piano staff in the second system that begins with bar 7 (in my example), so it shouldn’t be showing at all. It’s the fact that there is a chord symbol showing in another part that makes the Piano show even though “Chord Symbol or Slash region” is selected and there aren’t Chord or Slash regions in the piano there. Adding a chord symbol region to the Piano in that system, hiding the chord symbols (that previously weren’t showing), then deleting the region will allow the Piano to be hidden there.

Just to be more precise, here’s a walkthrough:

  1. New from Template/Solo/Guitar
  2. Add a Piano
  3. Confirm Engraving Options/Chords/Position on grand staff instruments is set to Above.
  4. 4/4, add a bunch of bars.
  5. Create a system break so the second system starts with bar 5.
  6. In the Guitar part in bar 5 add a C chord symbol. It will show in the Piano too of course if Setup/Chord Symbols defaults to Show for all rhythm section instruments.
  7. Change the Piano to be Setup/Chord Symbols/Show in Chord Symbols and Slash Regions. The C chord symbol should disappear from the Piano, but remain of course in the Guitar.
  8. Layout Options/Vertical Spacing/Staff Visibility/Hide Empty Staves: After First System (allow individual staves to be hidden)
  9. The treble staff of the Piano still shows in the second system, even though there is nothing at all on it. It is correctly hidden from system 3 onward.

This is the bug I was mentioning as there is no reason for the Piano to show in the 2nd system. Adding a Chord Symbol Region to the Piano in bar 5, selecting the C chord that appears, hiding it, then deleting the Region will correctly allow it to hide. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for those additional steps, nor documentation of it, that I can see. There is literally nothing in the Piano there so I would naturally expect it to hide which is what was happening in @MassMover’s project as well.

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Another case. Native Dorico File. Cannot hide the piano on pages 2, 6 and 8, without any obvious reason to me
(flow got exported from bigger project, where the problem originally occurred. Perhaps on other places, but same instrument. sometimes harp too).

Burning Horse Festival - Sketch 2.dorico (861.4 KB)

Piano and harp have explicitly been excluded from being hidden.

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duh. Time to go to sleep. (2 am here)

Thanks Leo, and sorry for this unnecessary post.

You’re an hour ahead of me, but I should go to bed too :wink:

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This undesirable behavior also happens with non grand-staff instruments. I’ve added a Bass to the walkthrough you gave. If I set “Allow individual staves of multi-staff instruments to be hidden” in Layout options, the staff of the Bass appears in the second system as well as the treble staff of the Piano.

hide empty staff bug?

hide empty staff bug? .dorico (377.3 KB)

Can anyone find why measures 3 to 10 are not hiding the vocal staff? This is not an xml import. It’s cut from 120 pages/14 flows and are the only measures in the entire piece where empty staves won’t hide.
I’ll probably go, “duh…I’m an idiot” but I’m just not finding the culprit.
Thanks.
Tancut.dorico.zip (507.7 KB)

Try double-clicking on the purple signpost (SYS. BRK + STAFF VIS.) and changing the settings to what is in the picture below.

Even just hiding voice 1 should be enough, or maybe click on Reset.

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I’d be tempted to suggest simply deactivating the manual staff visibility option for the voice, leaving a plain system break at bar 3. In your project on my machine at least, that results in the vocal staff being hidden due to your layout option for hiding empty staves.

Because manual staff visibility will hide a hidden staff until it’s either reset or explicitly shown, regardless of whether or not that staff has content later, it’s good to use it with caution.

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Thank you Stevenjones01 and Lillie. That worked. I had fiddled with this visibility setting on my own before posting but wasn’t aware that it could be controlled system by system and turned back on in a later system.
I should have done more homework, but I appreciate your help.