Writing to the Browser Status Bar

The browser status bar property window.status can be modified using JavaScript.

Thus to put a website welcome message in the status bar:

window.status = ‘Welcome to our website’;

If this action is to be repeated a function may be used.

In the example below the function setStatus takes the parameter strStatus, a text variable. The browser status bar is set to this value and then the function returns the value true.

<script type='text/javascript'>
<!--
function setStatus(strStatus) {
  window.status = strStatus;
  return true;
}
//-->
</script>

It was once common to add information to the browser status bar. It was also an obvious bar at the foot of the browser. Much of the information is now spread across the browser.

The current w3Scools Windows Status Property reference shows that only Opera continues to support this feature.