Status pane

The Status pane displays status information of the current application and state, as well as general information about the device status, such as signal strength and battery charge. It occupies the top part of the screen and comes in two variants: extended and small. The Status pane may also be totally left out in certain applications or situations.

Extended Status pane is a development of the earlier standard Status pane in S60 that contained a Context pane. Context pane cannot be used any more.

Note: The status pane used in Idle is a modified extended Status pane.

Small Status pane can be used in cases where it is imperative to maximize Main pane area (for example, Browser).

The Status pane contains the following subpanes:

Figure: Status pane areas

Using the status pane in C++ applications

The API to use for the status pane is the Status pane API. For implementation information, see Using the status pane API.

Use the Status pane API for the following tasks:

Applications can define and modify the title and navi subpanes. For implementation information on the subpanes in the status pane, see the following APIs:

Use the method IsAppOwned() in the class CEikStatusPaneBase::TPaneCapabilities to test whether the pane is owned by the application or the server. Applications can only interact directly with application owned subpanes.

CEikStatusPane is the interface through which applications use the status pane. This class synchronises the status pane layout with the server side status pane object. To do this, the method ApplyCurrentSettingsL() must be called whenever the owner application switches to the foreground.

The following options are available for modifying the default behavior of the status pane:

  • Since the status pane is a compound control, it can be made visible or invisible like an other control with CCoeControl::MakeVisible(). CCoeControl::MakeVisible() can be called before or after the control is activated. An example of a call to make the status pane invisible is as follows: 

    CEikStatusPane* sp = StatusPane();// Gets a pointer to the status pane in the UI controller 
StatusPane()->MakeVisible(EFalse); //make pane invisible somewhere in your code

  • Accessing and modifying controls inside the status pane.

    The Status Pane API provides methods for accessing the status pane control and modifying the status pane layout.

    If you wish to modify panes within the status pane, you need to get a pointer to the status pane and then use one of the following classes and methods:

  • Defining new resources for the status pane to override the default behavior

    Once you have defined your resources, you may need to use some of the status pane APIs to achieve the desired effect in your application.

    For more information, see the Status pane API and Navigation pane API reference documentation.

  • You could also possibly derive your own classes from the available classes or their base classes to customize your own controls.

Related APIs

© Nokia 2009.