Statusbars

is there any way to get text in the statusbar instead of hidden items?
say i want a base layout like

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

or something and i want items to simply pop up when available, e.g.:

+------[act: 2,3]------------------------------------------[lag: 0.09]-+
+------[mail]----------------------------------------------------------+

is this possible?

--
/* Name: Nikolai 'pcp' Weibull -- Age: 22 -- Born in: Chicago, IL USA *
 * Where @: Gothenburg, Sweden -- Homepage: http://www.pcppopper.org/ *
 * Email: [email protected], [email protected] -- System: GeForce2 MX 32 *
 * Celeron 667at950, Fujitsu 20.49gb UDMA-66, ASUS CUV4X, 256mb PC133 *
 * main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);} */