The work I do in Dorico is mostly of jazz rhythm section charts, so I often use staff visibility to toggle the bass clef staff on and off to save space. However, when it’s time to do final engraving, if I put a frame break on a bar with a staff visibility change and later want to adjust where that frame break is, I have to delete both of them via signpost, and redo the visibility toggle. This is because they automatically get assigned to the same signpost.
Is there a way to avoid this? These two things don’t really seem related to me, and both affect the page layout dramatically, so being able to delete them independently seems obvious (to me, anyway). If there isn’t a way to avoid this, then consider this a recommendation for a future update.
I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re describing. But if you have a Frame Break+Staff Vis, and you want that to be in a different bar, you can move the signpost in Write mode – either by cutting and pasting, or with Alt+arrow keys.
If you want the frame break to be somewhere else, but you want to maintain the visibility change with a system break at that location, you can select the signpost (or the first note in the bar and do Create System Break, which will turn the frame break into a system break (since Dorico only allows one break at a rhythmic position).
if I understand correctly, you’re using a braced 2-staff instrument, and using manual staff visibility to hide empty staves to save space. I would instead recommend removing and adding the staves as necessary, since the staff count signposts are independent of the break signposts, and this approach offers more flexibility with chord symbol positioning if desired.
That’s right, I usually just use a piano staff and work from there. Could you elaborate on how that’s executed? The chord symbols can sometimes be a headache for sure!
It’s as simple as selecting something on the staff, like a bar rest, then right click > staff > remove staff (or add staff below/above). You’ll then see separate signposts for the staff count change. Any notes are preserved when the staff is removed/added.
If, in layout options, you set chord symbols to appear between braced staves, then the chord symbols will appear above a single staff, and between the braced staves (if you take this adding/removing approach).
Another alternative might be to set Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Staff Visibility > Hide empty staves to “After first system” (or “All systems”), enable “Allow individual staves of multi-staff instruments to be hidden”, and then tick the exclusion boxes for all players except piano.
Yes, but the limitation is that if chord symbols are desired between the braced staves, empty lower staves won’t be hidden if they contain chord symbols.
So, simpler to place them initially above the grand staff, then select them all and change the property position to below. This still allows the lower empy staff to hide.
Not necessarily, it depends on how you prefer the chord symbols to be positioned relative to the other elements between the staves.