Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

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Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

2019-07-02 11:35 am

I'm writing for choir - versicles and responses - and I don't want to start a new line every time the choir parts come in.
But if I collapse the staves and uncollapse them without starting a new line, then the empty staves are still visible.
I want something like the attached where they actually disappear until wanted.

Re: Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

Reply #1 – 2019-07-07 09:08 pm

Here is an idea that might work (see attached example): You overwrite the staff part you want to disappear with some text that completely blanks it.

First, replace one of NWC's Highlight colors with white - you can do that under Tools->Options->tab Color. In my NWC, I have chosen "Highlight 4" to be white.

Then you create a text with some Times Roman font with the single character with code 9608 (0x2588) - this is a filled rectangle. Increase its scale to 300% (to cover all 5 staff lines); select your white highlight color on its Visibility tab; and then place it at suitably located invisible breaks. At the very left of your blanked segment, add such a text with justification "Left" (so that it starts at its insertion point); and at the very right, add such a textwith justfication "Right" (so that it ends at its insert point) - by this, you can precisely place start and end of the whited section by attaching these texts to e.g. bars (maybe even transparent ones).

Yes, a complete crutch. But maybe it helps.

H.M.

Re: Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

Reply #2 – 2019-07-08 05:27 pm

I was thinking: perhaps I could write a user tool to automatically insert the white text objects.
But I have one problem: I can't control the width of the text objects. I added some lyrics in your example file. Result: the white text objects don't completely span the measure anymore (see attachment).
I don't know how to solve this in a user tool.
But perhaps it is possible with a user object plugin, to draw a white rectangle of the correct size? I don't have enough knowledge for writing such an plugin, but maybe someone else?

Re: Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

Reply #3 – 2019-07-08 05:50 pm

Is this really worth the effort? In such cases, it is usually also necessary to decorate the newly beginning staves with various braces and maybe labels - it would be quite a lot of work to recreate all this with the limited drawing possibilities of NWC. I'd rather say that this is simply something NWC cannot do. For those (like the poster who asked) who need something akin to it, some manual work is fine so that the right compromise can be found.

H.M.

Re: Is there a way... to collapse and cancel it within a system?

Reply #4 – 2019-07-09 08:30 pm

Here is my attempt.