87Chapter 8Window and Document ObjectsWindow Properties and MethodsThe (Web host music)
87Chapter 8Window and Document ObjectsWindow Properties and MethodsThe one property and three methods for the windowobject described in this section have animmediate impact on user interaction. They work with all scriptable browsers. You can findextensive code examples in Part III for each property and method. You can also experimentwith the one-statement script examples by entering them in the top text box of The EvaluatorJr. (from Chapter 6). window.status propertyThe status bar at the bottom of the browser window normally displays the URL of a link whenyou roll the mouse pointer atop it. Other messages also appear in that space during docu- ment loading, Java applet initialization, and the like. However, you can use JavaScript to dis- play your own messages in the status bar at times that may be beneficial to your users. Forexample, rather than display the URL of a link, you can display a friendlier, plain-languagedescription of the page at the other end of the link (or a combination of both to accommo- date both newbies and geeks). You can assign the window.statusproperty some other text at any time. To change the sta- tus bar text of a link as the cursor hovers atop the link, you trigger the action with anonmouseoverevent handler of a link object. Due to the simplicity of setting the window.statusproperty, it is most common for the scriptstatements to run as inline scripts in the event handler definition. This is handy for shortscripts because you don t have to specify a separate function or add