Use JavaScript to Change the Window Status Message

By  on  

Though I don't normally recommend modifying the browser's default behaviors, changing the window's status bar does have its place. The window status bar can pass descriptive information about the element the user is hovering over or can hide the URL from users that don't understand source code enough to figure it out for themselves.

The JavaScript

window.status = 'Hello!  You are hovering over me.';

Recent Features

  • By
    Designing for Simplicity

    Before we get started, it's worth me spending a brief moment introducing myself to you. My name is Mark (or @integralist if Twitter happens to be your communication tool of choice) and I currently work for BBC News in London England as a principal engineer/tech...

  • By
    Create Namespaced Classes with MooTools

    MooTools has always gotten a bit of grief for not inherently using and standardizing namespaced-based JavaScript classes like the Dojo Toolkit does.  Many developers create their classes as globals which is generally frowned up.  I mostly disagree with that stance, but each to their own.  In any event...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    MooTools Typewriter Effect Plugin

    Last week, I read an article in which the author created a typewriter effect using the jQuery JavaScript framework. I was impressed with the idea and execution of the code so I decided to port the effect to MooTools. After about an hour of coding...

  • By
    CSS Counters

    Counters.  They were a staple of the Geocities / early web scene that many of us "older" developers grew up with;  a feature then, the butt of web jokes now.  CSS has implemented its own type of counter, one more sane and straight-forward than the ole...

Discussion

  1. Thanks, but it wont work in IE7… Just IE6..

  2. Thank you for mentioning this Selim. It looks as though IE7 has disabled this functionality.

  3. Yes, unfortunately custom status messagges are removed from ie7. I have searched it for a month ago :)

  4. thank you, i really appreciate all your tuts

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!