White Staff or 0 Lines

In a couple of piano method books they use a systems to teach note values and relative pitch with finger numbers. These pieces of music don’t have a staff really.

I think seen the answer to this on old posts but I really hope it’s changed.

Can I change the staff colour to white? Or, just have no lines and leave the notes on?

Currently you have to hack an xml file to designate an instrument as having 0 lines, or import an xml from another program that contains such an instrument. We are hoping this gets changed with D4.

Thanks for that. I was trying to find it but not having much luck. I am on a macbook. Do you know where it is? It’s annoying having a mac when I’ve been a PC guy foir a looooooong time :laughing:

Found it thanks. Right clicking on the app and showing package contents lets me in then the xml is in the resources folder.

:flushed: I don’t think this it, what was meant with music.xml import. Please don’t tinker with the program itself… There is a file in a (hidden) Library where you could apply changes - if you know, what you are doing. On a mac you navigate to that Library folder by going to the finder, then (whilst keeping the alt-key pressed) find your way around.
The “safer“ route would be to use a music.xml file import:
If you happen to own another music notation program (like Sibelius f.e. / I don’t know wether it can be done with MuseScore*), create something there with a staff without any lines. Then use that project, export it as music.xml and import it into Dorico.

*[edit]actually you could try staff properties “invisible” in MuseScore and see wether this transports through into the music.xml export. image

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This has been discussed a few times, here for example.

I have to say that hacking a json file is
Implicitly unsupported by the application - if it requires you to monkey around with the Library folder then it’s probably not the best way to go forward and may “break” in later Dorico iterations. Same with the musescore route…

If you keep the music.xml file created by Sibelius or MuseScore, you could re-import it, if a Dorico update “breaks” the functionality.
Having said that, a new version of Dorico could of course give you new options for creating or editing staves in the first place…who knows.

Yes, to echo @k_b I meant that you could import an xml file that already contained an instrument that is defined as having zero staff lines; I didn’t mean to hack Dorico itself. Dorico will respect how instruments are defined by other programs (ie- 1 or zero staff lines, for example).