Status bar shows anchor href, not text I set in onmouseover

[Christopher Nelson]

I have a menu tree made up of anchors inside list items in a
multi-level list that includes HTML like:

<ul id='xx'>
<li><a href='conf.cgi' class='menu' target='main'
title='Configur e stuff' onclick='rememb er("conf.cgi") '
onmouseover='ha ndleOver("Confi gure stuff")'>Settin gs</a></li>
</ul>

with the javascript:

function remember(cgi) {
var exp = new Date();
exp.setTime(exp .getTime() + 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
setCookie('last Page',cgi,exp);
}
function handleOver(text ) {
window.status=t ext;
}

but when I mouse over this, the status bar shows the full path to the
cgi:

http://hostname/cgi-bin/conf.cgi

I've put an alert() into handleOver() so I know it's getting invoked
and my JavaScript console is clean. What am I doing wrong?

While I want a general solution, I'm doing my development and initial
testing on Mozilla 1.7.3.

Any pointers appreciated. Thanks.

Chris

[VK]

> Status bar shows anchor href, not text I set in onmouseover

OK - maybe making it as a puzzle will finally attract you to *read* the
suggested FAQ

Read it *through* again and try to find the condition missing in your
script. Theanswer is given below the FAQ's link (ROT 13 encoded).

FAQ 4.35
<http://www.jibbering.c om/faq/#FAQ4_35>

<ANSWER: ROT 13>
lbh fubhyq erghea gehr sebz gur rirag
</ANSWER: ROT 13>

[Christopher Nelson]

VK wrote:

Status bar shows anchor href, not text I set in onmouseover

OK - maybe making it as a puzzle will finally attract you to *read* the
suggested FAQ

Read it *through* again and try to find the condition missing in your
script. Theanswer is given below the FAQ's link (ROT 13 encoded).

FAQ 4.35
<http://www.jibbering.c om/faq/#FAQ4_35>

<ANSWER: ROT 13>
lbh fubhyq erghea gehr sebz gur rirag
</ANSWER: ROT 13>

Yes, that's one of the changes I made. Having reviewed the FAQ, I

1) used setTimeout to delay setting the status, and

2) returned true from the event handler.

My code now looks like:

function setStatus(text) {
var a ='window.status =\''+text+'\'';
setTimeout(a,15 );
return true;
}
function clearStatus() {
window.status=' '
return true;
}

and the HTML looks like:

<li><a href='sysconf.c gi' class='menu' target='main'
title='Configur e stuff'
onmouseout='cle arStatus()'
onmouseover='se tStatus("Config ure stuff")'>Settin gs</a></li>

This seems to be fine in IE and Opera but now with Firefox or Mozilla
(where the href shows up, not the desired text).

[dx27s]

Christopher Nelson wrote:

I don't know that I'll do better than what I have. I'd really like to
fix the status bar in Mozilla and Firefox if I could but I don't know
what the problem is.

The default settings in Firefox prevent you from changing the status bar
text. Go to Preferences -> Web Features -> Enable Javascript ->
Advanced... and make sure "Change status bar text" is checked.

[Christopher Nelson]

dx27s wrote:

Christopher Nelson wrote:

I don't know that I'll do better than what I have. I'd really like to
fix the status bar in Mozilla and Firefox if I could but I don't know
what the problem is.

The default settings in Firefox prevent you from changing the status bar
text. Go to Preferences -> Web Features -> Enable Javascript ->
Advanced... and make sure "Change status bar text" is checked.

Thanks but even with that enabled, the status bar still shows the href,
not my text. I'm using Firefox v1.0.1, if that matters. <shrug>

[Lee]

Christopher Nelson said:

dx27s wrote:

Christopher Nelson wrote:

>
> I don't know that I'll do better than what I have. I'd really like to
> fix the status bar in Mozilla and Firefox if I could but I don't know
> what the problem is.

The default settings in Firefox prevent you from changing the status bar
text. Go to Preferences -> Web Features -> Enable Javascript ->
Advanced... and make sure "Change status bar text" is checked.

Thanks but even with that enabled, the status bar still shows the href,
not my text. I'm using Firefox v1.0.1, if that matters. <shrug>

With changing the status bar enabled, the following works for
me in Firefox 1.0.7:

<html>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
function handleOver(text ) {
window.status=t ext;
}
</script>
<a href="#" onmouseover="ha ndleOver('my message');retur n true">Demo</a>
</body>
</html>

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Christopher Nelson wrote:

My code now looks like:

function setStatus(text) {
var a ='window.status =\''+text+'\'';
setTimeout(a,15 );
Timeouts/intervalls less than 25 *milli*seconds are seldom reliable, and

setTimeout("win dow.status = '" + text + "';", 25);

will suffice.
[...]
and the HTML looks like:

<li><a href='sysconf.c gi' class='menu' target='main'
Think about if the `target' attribute is really necessary. If it is for
frames, think about replacing frames by block elements positioned with CSS.
title='Configur e stuff'
onmouseout='cle arStatus()'
onmouseover='se tStatus("Config ure stuff")'>Settin gs</a></li>

This seems to be fine in IE and Opera but now with Firefox or Mozilla
(where the href shows up, not the desired text).

You have probably set the preference that disallows scripts to manipulate
the content of the status bar (in Firefox: Edit/Tools, Preferences, Web
Features, Enable JavaScript, Advanced, [_] Change status bar text). That
said, you should almost never mess with the status bar, definitely not
here.
PointedEars

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Christopher Nelson wrote:

dx27s wrote:

Christopher Nelson wrote:

> I don't know that I'll do better than what I have. I'd really like to
> fix the status bar in Mozilla and Firefox if I could but I don't know
> what the problem is.
The default settings in Firefox prevent you from changing the status bar
text. Go to Preferences -> Web Features -> Enable Javascript ->
Advanced... and make sure "Change status bar text" is checked.

Thanks but even with that enabled, the status bar still shows the href,
not my text. I'm using Firefox v1.0.1, if that matters. <shrug>

The following works for me in

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050922
Firefox/1.0.7 (Debian package 1.0.7-1) Mnenhy/0.7.2.0

(and other UAs) if the above pref is enabled:

function setStatus(o, bHideURI)
{
var s = o.title;

if (!bHideURI && typeof o.href != "undefined" )
{
s += " (" + o.href + ")";
}

window.status = s;
return true;
}

function resetStatus()
{
window.status = window.defaultS tatus;

return true;
}

HTML:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<!-- missing system identifier triggers Quirks Mode -->
[...]
<a href="main.en.p hp" title="Display& nbsp;Language: English"
onmouseover="re turn setStatus(this) " onmouseout="res etStatus()"English</a>

HTH

PointedEars

[Christopher Nelson]

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:

...
The following works for me in

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050922
Firefox/1.0.7 (Debian package 1.0.7-1) Mnenhy/0.7.2.0

(and other UAs) if the above pref is enabled:

function setStatus(o, bHideURI)
{
var s = o.title;

if (!bHideURI && typeof o.href != "undefined" )
{
s += " (" + o.href + ")";
}

window.status = s;
return true;
}

...
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<!-- missing system identifier triggers Quirks Mode -->
[...]
<a href="main.en.p hp" title="Display& nbsp;Language: English"
onmouseover="re turn setStatus(this) " onmouseout="res etStatus()"

>English</a>

Cool. I like using o.title for the status bar. Thanks.