JAL-3032 refine 'empty status message' test (JS issue 179)

[jalview.git] / src / jalview / gui / AlignFrame.java

diff --git a/src/jalview/gui/AlignFrame.java b/src/jalview/gui/AlignFrame.java
index 7183f7f..340f9be 100644 (file)
--- a/src/jalview/gui/AlignFrame.java
+++ b/src/jalview/gui/AlignFrame.java
@@ -992,7 +992,12 @@ public class AlignFrame extends GAlignFrame implements DropTargetListener,
   @Override
   public void setStatus(String text)
   {
-    statusBar.setText(text);
+         // BH note: If text width and height are 0, then the layout manager
+         // will dispense of it and change the frame height. 
+         // In JavaScript, we use \u00A0  -- unicode "non-breaking space"
+         // which is the unicode encoding of  
+         
+    statusBar.setText(text == null || text.isEmpty() ? " " : text);
   }
 
   /*