Hide Staff Notation - Show Timeline

Command Location: View Menu

This command allows you to temporarily hide traditional staff notation on the score and instead show staves as a much more compact timeline.

This option is very useful for producing and printing song sheets which contain only song lyrics, or perhaps chords and guitar frets.  You can dramatically reduce the number of pages in a score if you do not need to see any staff notation or melody lines.

Note that this command is just a different way to view the score, it only hides notes and other notation temporarily - no notation is deleted.

In this state, MidiIllustrator shows the following score items on the timeline:

• Lyrics
• Bookmarks
• Chord names
• Guitar Frets
• Measure Numbers (if activated)

All notes and rests are hidden.  The following items are also hidden in this state:

• Clefs
• Time signatures
• Key signatures
• Bar lines, including repeats (though any repeats are still treated normally)
• ...other traditional notation objects which cannot be displayed on the compact timeline

When you hide staff notation on the score, MidiIllustrator also automatically activates the following options:

• Compress Empty Measures
• Hide Empty Portions of Staves

These options help to display the most compact score possible (you can disable/reenable them after showing/hiding staff notation).

If you want to shrink the score yet further, then disabling Staff Tools and Staff Namings will often reduce the height of staves on the score.  If Staff Tools are showing in Window View, and the "Ensure Staff Tools are Always Visible" option is enabled, then a dotted timeline will be shown for each active, but 'empty' staff.

Notes about Hiding Staff Notation

• Staff notation is only hidden when scores are viewed in Performance Mode.  If you change mode when staff notation is hidden, the staves will be shown as normal.
• If Staff Tools are visible in Window View then all active staves will be shown (instead of just a single timeline) if "Ensure Staff Tools are Always Visible" is also enabled on the staff menu.
• Certain actions are disabled when staff notation is hidden; specifically Step by Step Mode.
• Certain Tasks may reset the score to traditional staff notation.