I’m just pinging this topic again. I’m actually the publisher of the composer who originally posted this and I very much hope this is in future plans. Some of the workarounds cited in the thread are extremely ingenious, but I can envision some very simple implementations that would be a huge help. If we could right-click on any bar (or series of bars) and select “hide staff” (locally) that would be terrific. There could be an advanced global setting under notation options for “hide staff for empty measures of more than X consecutive bars” (with the X being user-configurable). They could be shown with signposts like other hidden elements and then you could individually unhide via the properties as needed. By hiding measures locally, parts would be unaffected unless otherwise desired.
I know I’m oversimplifying, and no doubt there are others here with smarter ideas, but this would fit the program architecture well (at least as well as the “create chord region”), and would immediately open up a world of possibilities.
Hope the idea is still on the wish list!
Thanks for all the great work you are all doing, and for everyone’s shared wisdom!