Status of window.defaultStatus

Category: general bitching

There are several ‘tutorials’ on the web that discuss various objects that are available to JavaScript programs running in an html page. None of the several that I have looked at mention that browsers no longer provide the function attached to the defaultStatus ‘property’ of the ‘window object’. Here is the rumored obit which is well down the list of Google hits for ‘window.defaultStatus’. Nor are these tutorials in a context where “statusbar of a window” has an apparent definition. Some speak of it as being text at the bottom of the window. I think it refers to the text in the chrome at the top of the window that normally tells the user the URI via which the current page is derived. (such a tutorial)

Another bitch is about the general practice of assuming that security is something to be patched onto a finished grand design. In this case the patch was to removed the feature. What were they thinking? The only thing that I can imagine is that the field is writable by the hardware and to deny the JavaScript program the ability to write it would be somehow demeaning, ungeneral, or otherwise objectionable. Never mind that the field had been invented to tell the user the origin of the page. Who ever invented the field was not in a position to keep subsequent system ‘enhancers’ from breaking the purpose of the field. I claim this is a bug in our process of collective design.

Below is the yield of some JavaScript that invokes the vestigial functionality. Different browsers behave differently.
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Some browsers treat the property as an initially empty per window mutable string. Other as an immutable empty string.