ShowStatus, how do i pass messages around? genius needed...

Question

I posted this earlier & offered duke dollars on it...
either no one can help me or no one has seen this...
so i have repeated the post (sorry).
I think i need a resident genius on this one!
Purpose of pgm: to teach kids the mulitplication table. A question appears in the status bar "how much is 7 x 5", kid answers, answer is checked. If answer is correct display in status bar "excellent" else answer is wrong so display "incorrect". If the answer is incorrect display the same question in the status bar.
my problem: The teachers responses are not appearing in the status bar� how can i fix this? Compounding problem: all questions & responses MUST be displayed in the status bar. (the questions ARE appearing in the status bar).
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.Graphics;
public class Ex6_31 extends JApplet implements ActionListener{
   int num1, num2;
   JLabel resultLabel;
   JTextField ans;
   String message = "";
   public void init(){
      Container c = getContentPane();
      c.setLayout( new FlowLayout());
      resultLabel = new JLabel( "my answer > " );
      c.add( resultLabel );
      ans = new JTextField( 10 );
      ans.addActionListener( this );
      c.add(ans);
      getMultiplicands();
      poseQuestion();
   }//end of init
   public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e ){
      int response = Integer.parseInt( ans.getText() );//users response to first question
      int mark = checkAnswer(response);                //mark=1 if correct, 0 if wrong
      teacher(mark);                                   //call the teacher for her response
      while (mark == 0){                                //if the answer was wrong
         ans.setText("");                               //clear the answer textField
         poseQuestion();                                //ask the same question
         response = Integer.parseInt( ans.getText() );  //get the users answer
         mark = checkAnswer(response);                  //check the users answer
         teacher(mark);                                //call the teacher for her response
      ans.setText("");                               //clear the answer textField
      getMultiplicands();                            //create a new question
      poseQuestion();                                //pose question to user
   }//end of actionPerformed
   public void getMultiplicands(){
      num1 = 1 + (int) (Math.random() * 9 );
      num2 = 1 + (int) (Math.random() * 9 );
   }//end of getMultiplicands
   public void poseQuestion(){
      String query = "";
      query = ("how much is " +num1+ " x " +num2 + " ?");
      message = query;
      repaint();
   }//end of poseQuestion
   public void paint(Graphics g){
      super.paint(g);
      getAppletContext().showStatus(message);
   }//end of paint
   public int checkAnswer(int r){
      //r contains users response to the question
      //if they answered correctly mark = 1, incorrect mark = 0;
      if (r == (num1*num2))
         return 1;
      else
         return 0;
   }//end of checkAnswer  
   public void teacher( int m){
      //the users mark, 0 or 1, is contained in m
      String talk = "";
      if (m == 0)
         talk = ("No - that is NOT correct");
      if (m == 1)
         talk = ("excellent!!");
      message = talk;
      repaint();        //to display the teachers comments you must repaint
   }//end of teacher
}//end of Applet

Answer 1

Purpose of pgm: to teach kids the mulitplication
table. A question appears in the status bar "how much
is 7 x 5", kid answers, answer is checked. If answer
is correct display in status bar "excellent" else
answer is wrong so display "incorrect". If the answer
is incorrect display the same question in the status
bar.
my problem: The teachers responses are not appearing
in the status bar� how can i fix this? Compounding
problem: all questions & responses MUST be displayed
in the status bar. (the questions ARE appearing in the
status bar).Sympton: Responses are not displayed.
Cause: The next question is overwriting the previous response.
Cure 1: Incorporate the previous response in the next question.
Cure 2: Don't use the status bar.
The browser status bar is small, hard to read, and isn't guaranteed to be visible. In IE, the status bar can be disabled in the view menu, and it is also hidden in full-screen mode. Further, it can only hold a single string, which is easily overwritten.
To guarantee that a user can see a message, it is recommended that the message be displayed in an appropriate way in the applet. A simple solution would be to place the question in a label above the answer, and the response in a label above the question.
For the first question, you set the text of the question label, and leave the response label blank. For each successive question, update the question and response labels as necessary.
To position the labels correctly, take a look at the AWT tutorials, in particular the section on LayoutManagers on the sun website. GridBagLayout would work, but might be tricky to set up... a combination of GridLayout, nested Panels and FlowLayouts may be the simplest technique.
A final note, you are using swing in your applet... most of the browsers that are connected to the internet are using Java 1.1.x, which does not include the swing classes. To reach the widest audience, you should use only AWT components - particularly for school-based situations... if your users have access to upgrade their machine setup, then requiring them to download the Java plugin is a feasible solution to allow a larger feature set.
Regards,
-Troy