The JS API is enabled for the core system bars in Cordova Android 15.1.0
via Since 15.1.0 via https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/1971
I think the features of the old status bar plugin was:
- Controlling light or dark content (basically black or white font style)
- Showing or hiding the status bar
- Setting the status bar background colour
- Setting the status bar as a solid bar or as an overlay on top of the
webview.
- On iOS I guess the statusbar plugin supports a statusbar tap or the
ability to tap the scrollbar to scroll to top via
*StatusBarDefaultScrollToTop* config preference.
On the last note, I'm not sure if the core system bar plugin has a
direct equivalent but I'd also point out that the goal for the core
system bar plugin is to add the "basic" feature set as you would expect
as a core feature of any app. And this particular feature might exceed
that scope, and given that it's an iOS only feature I'd argue it's an
unfinished feature of the original product and can be something we could
"drop" (by deprecating the status bar plugin without a replacement)
The original statusbar plugin also offered both declarative API (via
config preferences) and a JS API for controlling all the options
mentioned above, except for visibility state, which only appears to be
controlled via the JS API. The core system bars API I believe matches
the same capabilities as of Cordova Android v15.1.0, noting that
controlling light and dark content is not directly controllable, but is
influenced by the background colour state instead (imposed opinion). The
imposed opinion I don't believe is a blocker, and if desired we can
likely incorporate a configuration parameter to influence the luminance
formula without introducing a breaking change. So I believe the core
system bar API is now on par with the capabilities of the original
status bar plugin.
I'd also point out that all the APIs on the android implementation that
the older statusbar plugin depends on is deprecated so without drastic
changes to that plugin, I don't foresee us being able to maintain that
plugin in the longer term anyway. I believe most of the refactoring
required will end up being similar to what is implemented at the core
platform, and maintaining two separate statusbar plugins does not make
much sense to me in the long term.
At [email protected], there was issues that made the status bar
plugin still mandatory to obtain certain level of functionality that
might have been necessary for some apps, and I think 15.1.0 has
corrected all of those issues. So I believe we are probably ok in
deprecating cordova-plugin-statusbar.
So assuming that my analysis is accurate, I vote +1
On 2026-09-09 12:53 p.m., Manuel Beck wrote:
Hi Alexandre,
it's like you wrote. Setting the status bar background color will change the
dark/light appearance in edge-to-edge mode. You can set the background color
dynamically by the Status Bar JavaScript API
window.statusbar.setBackgroundColor('css-color'). Setting
window.statusbar.setBackgroundColor('black')
for e.g. will make the status bar appear in light mode.
Manuel
________________________________
Von: Alexandre Alves<[email protected]>
Gesendet: Wednesday, 09 September 2026 16:20:25
An: Manuel Beck<[email protected]>;[email protected]
<[email protected]>
Betreff: Re: [VOTE] Deprecation of cordova-plugin-statusbar
Hi
Do you mean that by setting StatusBarBackgroundColor in edge-to-edge, it will
make text colour dark if the background is light and the opposite if dark? Is
there a method to set the background colour dynamically?
Alexandre Alves
________________________________
From: Manuel Beck<[email protected]>
Sent: 09 September 2026 13:31
To:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Cc: Alexandre Alves<[email protected]>
Subject: AW: [VOTE] Deprecation of cordova-plugin-statusbar
Hi,
you are correct, Darrel was against your PR and I closed it 😃. But after I
worked some more time on the status bar issue, I noticed that the config.xml
preference „StatusBarBackgroundColor“ changes the dark/light appearance of the
status bar on Android edge-to-edge mode even if the background color is not
seen itself. To make it fully functional I created PR #1971 on cordova-android
(https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/1971) which makes it also
possible with the Status Bar JavaScript API. Since iOS 18.5 the system handles
the appearance automatically. To make it work on older iOS versions I fixed
that with PR #1689 (https://github.com/apache/cordova-ios/pull/1689), but which
is not released yet. So it’s now possible to handle the dark/light appearance
of the status bar with the cores only.
Manuel
Von: Alexandre Alves via dev<[email protected]>
Datum: Mittwoch, 9. September 2026 um 14:13
An:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Cc: Alexandre Alves<[email protected]>
Betreff: Re: [VOTE] Deprecation of cordova-plugin-statusbar
Hi,
I tried to push a PR (https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/1917) to
cordova android to be able to control the color of the content (light or dark)
but the opinion was that it should not be included in the platform and
developers who needed that feature would have to continue relying on the
statusbar plugin. A function to control the color of the content in the
statusbar is not available in each platform.
If this is the case, then it should not be deprecated.
Alexandre Alves
________________________________
From: Manuel Beck<[email protected]>
Sent: 09 September 2026 13:04
To:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: AW: [VOTE] Deprecation of cordova-plugin-statusbar
I have a correction to be made at the notes on point 3:
cordova-android lags the possibilty of using the config.xml preference "<preference
name="StatusBarOverlaysWebView" value="false" />" in non-edge-to-edge mode
It should be meant
lags the possibilty of using the config.xml preference "<preference
name="StatusBarOverlaysWebView" value="true" />" in non-edge-to-edge mode
Von: Manuel Beck<[email protected]>
Datum: Mittwoch, 9. September 2026 um 13:59
An:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Betreff: [VOTE] Deprecation of cordova-plugin-statusbar
Hi,
I want to vote for deprecating cordova-plugin-statusbar. Most of the
functionality moved to cordova-android since 15.0.0 and cordov-ios since 8.0.0.
I want to add a deprecation note on cordova-plugin-statusbar on top of the
readme to inform people about that and directing to the blog post articles for
cordova-android 15.0.0 and cordova-ios 8.0.0 where some replacements are
described. PR #296
(https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-statusbar/pull/296) would add the
note. Also a blog post article could be created, which informs the user of the
deprecation and how to use the cores instead. Also the Status Bar JavaScript
API could be mentioned there.
Here are some things to note about the status bar compatibility of the cores:
1. cordova-android lagged the possibility to hide the status bar completely,
which is fixed by PR #2000
(https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/2000) but not released yet.
2. Since cordova-android 15.1.0 the dark/light appearance of the status bar can
bet by the Status Bar JS API
(https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/1971). On iOS this is done
automatically since iOS 18.5. For iOS older than 18.5 the PR #1689
(https://github.com/apache/cordova-ios/pull/1689) fixed that, but which is not
released.
3. cordova-android lags the possibilty of using the config.xml preference "<preference name="StatusBarOverlaysWebView"
value="false" />" in non-edge-to-edge mode, because „StatusBarOverlaysWebView“ is not supported by the cores. On iOS this
behaviour can be obtained by using "<meta name="viewport" content="viewport-fit=cover“>“, which is currently not
supported by Android. Darrel opened a PR #2010 on cordova-android (https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/2010) which would resolve
this.
I think, there will be done no more work on cordova-plugin-statusbar and the
cores will take care of the functionality.
Regards,
Manuel
<https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/pull/2000>
