"Custom Score" doesn't display anything

When I create a “Custom Score” layout with a subset of my instrumentation, then open a new tab to display this layout, no staves are displayed. I see a big light blue rectangle - presumably the background - with nothing else. (q.v. screen cap attached)

I’ve had this happen in two separate Dorico projects. Viewing the full score or individual instrument layouts seems to work fine.

Any suggestions? Is this a bug, or am I overlooking something obvious? I’m new enough to Dorico that I can’t rule out the latter.

Thanks for any help!

Mike

That is because no flow is added to the layout. Tick the checkbox of your flow while the new layout is still selected and the music will appear.

Thanks!

It seems very strange that in creating a new tab I’m allowed to select layouts that aren’t assigned to the current flow.

I guess that tabs persist across flows. Which is also strange, given the above.

I don’t think it’s strange, Michael. You have complete freedom to choose which players and flows are present in any layout, so it wouldn’t make sense to restrict which layouts you could open in tabs within the same project. Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean!

It’s counterintuitive to view a layout and see a blue square with no information; it looks like a display bug.

At the very least there should be some indicator of what’s (not) happening — perhaps some text that says “There are no instruments assigned to this layout in this flow” or something along those lines?

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I agree with Michael. I’ve tried to add a custom score layout several times in the past, seen a blue square, and assumed it was a bug of some sort.

Then I looked it up, duh. Of course, now it makes sense. But it also seems logical that if I create a custom score and add players, it should display music, and I can then add or subtract flows as desired. Threw me at first.

Dan, that’s totally fine, but I use a Custom Score when I’ve got 80 flows in a project and want a layout that displays ONE of them.

I don’t want the current behaviour to change.

I agree that some graphical indication in the main document window that no music has been added to the layout would be useful. Perhaps an iconized empty chair?

This. At least something that indicates I need to add a flow to show music.