Multirests and Empty Bars

Added 01 Aug 2005 (last updated 21 May 2009)

For use with Sibelius 3.x, Sibelius 4, Sibelius 4.1, Sibelius 5 and Sibelius 6

Multirests and Empty Bars creates a text file showing the locations of:

• Multirests and their terminators (for the entire score; process parts as separate files)
• Empty bars (bars without notes)
• Empty bars without bar rests (probably notation errors)
• Occupied bars
• Irregular bars (whose length differs from the time signature)

This information may be useful for proofreading, for determining why multirests split, or for managing rehearsals and allocation of players to instruments. Copyists may also find it to be useful.

Changes in version 3.6:

• Now handles unsaved scores, or scores with \"untitled\" in their filenames

Changes in version 3.16:

• Fix to show terminators of certain 1-bar \"multirests\"
• Added warning about multirests that are split by Auto Layout options

Changes in version 3.0:

• A new option, Multirests in Selected Staves Only. Previously, all staves in the score were checked, and multirests were reported only when the multirest was present in all staves. This was intended to report only on multirests that could be visible at the moment that the plugin was run. To check a specific staff, you had to extract a part. With the new option (on by default), you can check individual staves in the full score. (The multirests will still not be visible in the score until you extract a part). Note that even when the Selected Stave option is selected, the system staff is checked as well, since contents of the system staff (system text like composer and title and headers) often influence the breaking of multirests.
• Since the plug-in is used most often to check multirests, the empty bar checkboxes are now off by default.
• A number of minor bugs have been fixed.

Changes in version 3.12:

• When run in Sibelius 4, the plug-in makes a better determination of what terminates a multirest
• When run in Sibelius 4, if there are bar number changes present, the log file will show both the \"displayed\" and \"consecutive\" bar numbers

Changes in version 3.1:

• There was an error that if you choose the \"selected staves only\" option, but have no selection, it continues but only processes the system staff, with the result that the multirests are wrong. Now fixed.

Changes in version 3.5:

• Can now detect hidden objects that do not break multirests (Sibelius 4.1 only)
• Adds staff name to location of object breaking a multirest
• Download MultirestsAndEmptyBars.zip (18K, downloaded 7686 times)

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.