I wanted to hide empty staves for the piano player. I knew there was an option, but I had to consult the manual to find it, because opening Layout Options - Staves and Systems, pressing Ctrl+F and typing “empty” didn’t give any results. It’s apparently in the Vertical Spacing section at the very bottom, but I think people would find it more intuitively in the Staves and Systems section. Just my 2 cents.
Not a bad approach.
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If you click on the Vertical Spacing category, you can see the sub-menu item for Staff Visibility. IMO (and I know this is subjective), it makes more sense to put it in Vertical Spacing, since hiding and showing a staff is less a function of that staff’s properties, and more a function of how staves and systems interact on the page.
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If anything, there are a few parameters that could stand to be presented in more than one place in the menus. That’s against the ethos, but Herman’s observation is not unreasonable.
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hiding and showing a staff is less a function of that staff’s properties
Then why is Manual Staff Visibility found under Staff in the context menu?
more a function of how staves and systems interact on the page.
I also fail to see how “the way staves and systems interact” makes it inappropriate for the “Staves and Systems” section.
“Vertical Spacing”, for me, only contains settings to control the vertical spacing between visible elements. Similarly to how I wouldn’t expect any note/rest visibility options in a “Horizontal Spacing” section. Hiding a staff affects the position of other staves, but so does condensing, for example.
That being said, a global search for all settings/actions would be handy. I’m a software developer and my IDE has this, which is why I rarely have to consult the online help just to find a setting.
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Yeah that makes sense.
Given that finding where to look for something was the biggest hurtle I faced when learning Dorico 1, I could support a search function.
At the same time, I think “Hide empty Staves” and “Manual Staff Visibility” are properly located since the first is a flow/document-level setting while the second deals with a specific staff or staves in a specific system. The granularity is different. But clearly others may think differently.
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This reminds me of the threads about where tremolos should be, instead of the repeats popover or panel… It was one of the most popular topics back then (version 1 and 2) until… most of us got used to it. Both solutions make sense but the devs had to pick one. Staves and systems is already a crowded category… I can understand the team’s choice.
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Well this was only the 2nd time I needed to look in the manual to find this feature, so I guess eventually I’ll memorize it (especially after this thread). Only problem is I’m not a professional copyist (not even a professional musician) so it will take a while.
Staves & Systems category currently has 6 menu items while Page Setup has 7 and Players has 10 though.
At the same time, I think “Hide empty Staves” and “Manual Staff Visibility” are properly located since the first is a flow/document-level setting
Except that “flow/document-level settings” don’t necessarily belong under Vertical Spacing… all the other settings there have to do with the gaps between staves/systems. The only relation to Vertical Spacing is that you can free up vertical space by hiding staves 
There are other document level settings that affect vertical spacing as well under Staves and Systems as well, like the options to control when to show System Dividers (Never / When number of staves differ / When minimum number of players present).
I agree with @Herman_Bovens , I don’t find the option to be very intuitively placed in “Vertical Spacing”, and I know the program and am used to it, just feels a little wrong every time (similar to the graphic slices in engrave mode, instead of print mode…)
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