The status area on the ISPF Primary Option Menu is a 21-column dynamic area that is composed of a 12-character description field, one attribute byte, and an 8-character field to display the value of the selected variable. The status area is limited to eleven description fields and their values. It can be manipulated from two places:

• The Status choice on the ISPF Primary Option Menu action bar. Use this pull-down to specify what you want to display in the status area. See Status pull-down for additional information and examples.
• The ISPF Status panel, which displays when you select Status Area from the Menu pull-down available on most action bars throughout ISPF. Use this facility to define the contents of the status area. See Defining the status area for additional information and examples.
  Note: The ISPF Status panel also contains an action bar choice called "Status". This does not affect which Status option displays on the Primary Option Menu panel. It determines which Status option displays within the ISPF Status panel.

The first five logical screens, created by a SPLIT or related command, each have their own status view. For each screen after that, the view defaults to the setting of the first screen.