I would use this feature, particularly implemented similar to how Kev999 suggests, on every single song I record. Starting the actual song at a measure called measure 1 and seeing the verses, choruses, bridges, intros, codas etc. colour-coded and distinguishable at a glance would be great and very much appreciated.
 
It would really make my work much easier and much less like work! :)

It would be fantastic to start bar numbering at a negative offset.
I'd be happy if this was visual ONLY (i.e. call it a "Staff View Bar Offset" and make it visible in Track View as an additional ruler, whilst leaving all other bar math untouched)

Hasn't this feature request been logged before?
Cheers..

As per forum guidelines "Duplicates will be removed or merged.".
Will give it a further 24 hours for response I notice OP has created further feature requests since I posted here.
 
Cheers...

Keep the existing timeline ruler as it stands, but provide the option of displaying a second ruler, one that is customizable. The user can set the start of this ruler to coinside with the start of the song and to count from 1 or 0 or whatever, according to preference. The ruler can also be divided up as required by the user to represent different sections of the song, e.g. intro, verses, choruses, bridges or whatever. Each section can be assigned a colour and a starting number which could be 1 or 0 or some offset. The sections can also be assigned a name or descriptive piece of text. When zoomed out, the different sections of the song will be obvious by the colours. When zoomed in, you can see at a glance exactly which section of the song you are in and how many bars into the section.
 
YES, great idea Kev!

I agree that the above would be very sweet! But because of lost horizontal real estate, it would force me to buy an LCD screen that actually has a usable screen resolution; something other than this crappy 1080p stuff the TV industry forced down our throats.

Huh. I didn't see the other feature request. Feel free to delete this one, Mods. (I've been on holiday)

Every once in a while I come across a situation where I would like to set the start time, or measure, to some point after the very beginning of the time line - kinda like a "count-in" time. What I mean is that, instead of starting at measure 1, for example, the time line might begin at, say, -2, then count down to -1, and then the song would begin at measure 1. Similarly, if the time ruler was set to seconds, the start time might be -2 sec, then count up to -1, 0 (the beginning of the song), 1, 2, ...
 
Why? Well, if I'm working with a midi representation of a piece of printed music, it's easier to find or enter a given measure if the ruler matches what's on the page. Usually, there's an offset of a couple of measures in the DAW to allow for some pre-start automation. Of course, it's not that hard to add or subtract to figure that out, so this is not exactly a showstopper, but it might be useful. It also might be helpful to have that "zero point" freely movable to allow quick calculations of time or measure durations of sections of the song starting in the middle of the song.
 
... 'just a thought.

one of the first feature requests made

'just goes to show, there are no new ideas...