Statusbar Part I
- Statusbar and Messages

Jensen Harris has a brief history of the statusbar where he explains both the historic use of the statusbar and the use in Office 2007.

The statusbar is a part of the standard user interface that most people don't use or notice.

At the same time, people don't like interfering dialogs or dialogs that steal the focus. If you are in the middle of writing and a dialog box pops up, there is a chance that you will immediately dismiss the dialog by pressing space or return while typing.

Microsoft created a new solution for Internet Explorer that showed a non-dialog based notification ("pop-down") to ensure that people really noticed the message, without showing a dialog and stealing the focus.

A somewhat similar solution is the "Transparent message" that is a brainchild of Jef Raskin (author of The humane interface).

PpcSoft iKnow has implemented a combination of the standard statusbar, the "pop-down" message and the "Transparent message" into an expanding statusbar notification shown below.


As you can see, the notification is very visible due to the size, but less intrusive than the "Transparent message" as it is shown at the bottom of the window.

It is important to note that the notification does not steal focus, so you can simply ignore it and continue to work. The notification will automatically hide after a few seconds, and you can always see the last message again by clicking the statusbar.