Creating an Applet User Interface

Displaying Short Status Strings

All applet viewers -- from the Applet Viewer to Netscape Navigator -- allow applets to display a short status string. In current implementations, this string appears on the status line at the bottom of the applet viewer window. In browsers, all applets on the page, as well as the browser itself, generally share the same status line.

You should never put crucial information in the status line. If many users might need the information, it should instead be displayed within the applet area. If only a few, sophisticated users might need the information, consider displaying the information on the standard output (see the next page).

The status line is not usually very prominent, and it can be overwritten by other applets or by the browser. For these reasons, it's best used for incidental, transitory information. For example, an applet that loads several image files might display the name of the image file it's currently loading.

Applets display status lines with the showStatus() method. Here's an example of its use:

showStatus("MyApplet: Loading image file " + file);

Note: Please don't put scrolling text in the status line. Browser users find such status line abuse highly annoying!

Creating an Applet User Interface