JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

Window.defaultStatus — the default status line text

Availability

JavaScript 1.0

Synopsis

                  window.defaultStatus

Description

defaultStatus is a read/write string property that specifies the default text that will appear in the window’s status line. Web browsers typically use the status line to display the browser’s progress while loading a file and to display the destination of hypertext links that the mouse is over. While it is not displaying any of these transient messages, the status line is, by default, blank. However, you can set the defaultStatus property to specify a default message to be displayed when the status line is not otherwise in use, and you can read the defaultStatus property to determine what the default message is. The text you specify may be temporarily overwritten with other messages, such as those that are displayed when the user moves the mouse over a hypertext link, but the defaultStatus message is always redisplayed when the transient message is erased.

If you set defaultStatus for a Window object that is a frame, the message you specify is visible whenever the mouse is within that frame (regardless of whether that frame has focus). When you specify defaultStatus for a top-level window that contains no frames, your message is always visible when the window is visible. If you specify defaultStatus for a top-level window that contains frames, your message is visible only when the mouse is over the borders that separate the frames. Thus, in order to guarantee ...