PRB: Cannot Remove or Change Status Bar on HTML Dialog Box (191186)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.0
Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01
Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01 SP1

This article was previously published under Q191186

SYMPTOMS

When you use window.showModalDialog to show an HTML dialog box, you cannot programmatically remove the status bar from the window.

Also, window.status appears to have no effect.

CAUSE

In Internet Explorer 4.x, it is not possible to remove the status bar for security reasons. This is to prevent Web pages from spoofing password dialog boxes that may retrieve personal user information.

STATUS

This behavior is by design. The designed behavior has changed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later to allow removal of the status bar.

MORE INFORMATION

One alternative approach is to use window.open, which can create windows without the status bar:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
  function openANewWindow()
  {
     newwindow = window.open("URL", "WindowName", "status=no");
  }
</SCRIPT>

However, this window will not be modal, and the new window will need to access the creator window through window.opener to pass values back and forth.

REFERENCES

For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/

http://support.microsoft.com/iep

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	5/11/2006
Keywords:	kbfix kbie500fix kbprb kbScript KB191186