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
    9 Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos

    As much as developers now loathe Flash, we're still playing a bit of catch up to natively duplicate the animation capabilities that Adobe's old technology provided us.  Of course we have canvas, an awesome technology, one which I highlighted 9 mind-blowing demos.  Another technology available...

  • By
    Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

    David asked me if I'd be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you...

Incredible Demos

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!