So what you saying is the FireFox documentation on e.cancelable
e.preventDefault() are completely BS? The preventDefault should stop
the normal functionality from occuring but does not??? Although I
believe you I just don't understand why this is so.
It is not BS (at least not all of it
Simply window.status is a *legacy* interface from Netscape. And usually
when you are dealing with legacy you have to forget any common as well
as any particular sense and just do what is working.
Status change requires return true from the same context where the
change has been made:
window.status = myText;
return true;
These statements have to be in this order and within the same context.
There is no any reason in it, like there is no reason in the hill
behind my window. It just here.
You may do not like Microsoft, but one thing you have to give them a
credit for (?): if a standard and the common sense are in
contradiction, they choose the common sense.
Intrinsic event handlers are really anonymous functions. So fragment
like:
<a href="foo.html" onmouseover="window.status='Hello!';return true;"...
in the reality is:
<a href="foo.html" onmouseover="
function anonymous() {
window.status='Hello!';
return true;
}"...
and it's fine
But
<a href="foo.html" onmouseover="myFunction('Hello!');"...
in the reality is:
<a href="foo.html" onmouseover="
function anonymous() {
myFunction('Hello!');
}"...
And now you can see clearly that it is not matter what will you return
from myFunction(): function anonymous() will still return undefined to
the handler.
Now you can guess that the programmed handler:
myHref.onmouseover = myFunction;
in the reality is a reproduction of the same situation
but even in worse case because you are left w/o possibility to
pass arguments:
myHref.onmouseover= function() {myFunction();}
And the only way I can think of to overpass this legacy crazyness is to
use anonymous function right on the handler:
myHref.onmouseover = function() {
window.status = 'Hello!';
return true;
}
The last finally works for FF (if "Change status bar text" option is
enabled).
