You set the text of any part of a status window by sending the SB_SETTEXT message, specifying the zero-based index of a part, a pointer to the string to draw in the part, and the technique for drawing the string. The drawing technique determines whether the text has a border and, if it does, the style of the border. It also determines whether the parent window is responsible for drawing the text. For more information, see the following topic.
By default, text is left-aligned within the specified part of a status window. You can embed tab characters (\ t) in the text to center or right-align it. Text to the right of a single tab character is centered, and text to the right of a second tab character is right-aligned.
To retrieve text from a status window, use the SB_GETTEXTLENGTH and SB_GETTEXT messages.
If your application uses a status window that has only one part, you can use the WM_SETTEXT, WM_GETTEXT, and WM_GETTEXTLENGTH messages to perform text operations. These messages deal only with the part that has an index of zero, allowing you to treat the status window much like a static text control.
To display a line of status without creating a status window, use the DrawStatusText function. The function uses the same techniques to draw the status as the window procedure for the status window, but it does not automatically set the size and position of the status information. When calling the function, you must specify the size and position of the status information, as well as the device context of the window in which to draw it.