Status bar

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A status bar is a component (widget) often found at the bottom of windows in a graphical user interface. It is very frequently divided into sections, each of which shows different information. Its job is primarily to display information about the current state of its window, although some status bars have extra functionality. For example, many web browsers have clickable sections that pop up a display of security or privacy information.

A status bar can also be text-based, primarily in console-based applications, in which case it is usually the last row in an 80x25 text mode configuration, leaving the top 24 rows for application data. Usually, the status bar—often called a status line in this context—displays the current state of the application, and helpful keyboard shortcuts.

[edit] Examples

An example of a graphical status bar in Opera:

An example of a text status line in Emacs:

• The status bar of a file manager often shows the count of items in the current directory, their total size, or the size of the currently selected item.
• The status bar of a web browser will sit relatively dormant when the user is sitting on a page, then light up with a flourish of activity when the user clicks a link.
• The status bar of a graphics editor (such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Paint) will show information about the current image, such as its dimensions, colour space, or resolution.
• In a word processor, the status bar often shows cursor position, the number of pages in the document, and the state of the caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock keys. Additionally, many word processors assign the insert key a behaviour similar to that of these three, to allow toggling the insertion mode — the state of that is also displayed in the status bar.