Most things I create with Flex are applications and all applications should have a status bar, no? So I've been working on a couple of variations on the theme.

Here's a very simple demo. Press the buttons and a message is shown at the bottom for a set amount of time - highlighted yellow - before the status bar returns to showing its default message.

Ultra simple. But then some of the best things are. The source for the above demo is here.

Taking it one step further I wanted to keep a history of messages displayed and display these in a popup. Lotus Notes users will be used to the idea of this UI element.

In the example below messages have different background colours depending on the message type and display until a newer message comes along. Clicking on the status bar displays older messages. Clicking the popup closes it.

A little more advanced than the first demo, but still simple in concept. The source for the demo is here. In this demo the status bar is a component - the source for which is here.

Taking it Further

As with most things I post here this came about because I wanted to add one to an app I'm working on.

Chances are I'll take it further at some point. Perhaps I'll add timestamps. Maybe a way to customize the colours used. Maybe a way to limit the number of historical messages stored.