Hello!
I’m working on a big orchestra score and just wanted to try optimizing it in Dorico (condensing, hiding empty staves). When I ‘hide empty staves after the first system’ it shows the full orchestra at the start of every flow, but I only want it to show the full orchestra on the first page of the first flow (show instruments required for all the flows). And at the beginning of every flow, I want to show on the first page, only the instruments playing in that flow. Is that possible in Dorico 3.5? I can’t figure it out.
There’s new functionality in Dorico 3.5 called Manual Staff Visibility, which is linked to System/Frame Breaks. Your quickest route is probably to tell Layout Options to Hide Empty Staves throughout. Then add a System Break at the start of bar 1 of the first flow, double-click its signpost (or use Engrave > Manual Staff Visibility) and use the Show All button at the bottom of the dialog.
Add a further System Break at the start of the next system and set its Manual Staff Visibility to Reset All (again using the buttons at the bottom of the dialog).