No, I'm not going to rail against the use of chromeless popup windows (windows with no browser controls) like you might expect. There are times when they are appropriate, and can be used very nicely. However, there is the problem of knowing when a page in a chromeless window is finished loading. To solve that problem I've put together this combination of JavaScript and an animated GIF to show how a status bar could be built into an interface.
» Pop that window!
» View the source.
The idea behind it is that you have a looping animated GIF that is swapped out for a non-animated image by the page's onLoad event handler (i.e., when the page is finished loading). This has the effect of the standard browser status bar, or the animated logo, while still allowing you to design something that works with your interface. In this demo the animation is a bar, but there's no reason it couldn't be a spinning dial, or a running dog, or whatever.
Note: If you're on a fairly fast connection you may not see the status bar for very long.
The images used in this demo are from the Sega Web site, and are reproduced here for educational, non-commercial purposes only.
