If you only have one window open (your status window) the whole switchbar will be filled with just the status window.
If you have 2 windows open one half of the switchbar will be the status window, the half will be another window.
Note that he's answering the "Fill" question here. (Just clarifying)
Yes, that is called the switchbar. You can use that and/or the Treebar (see View menu). Personally, I prefer the switchbar, but others prefer the treebar.
As mentioned, you may not have the latest version if you don't see all options mentioned by SladeKraven.
As far as tooltips like you're wanting, I believe those were requested at some point. You can request features in the Feature Request forum. They are more likely to be seen by Khaled. I don't know if he'll add that kind of tooltip popup when hovering over items in options and menus... that would be a lot of tooltip text to try and type up, when most questions can be answered by reading the help file. Still, it may be possible. Such tooltip popups can be scripted into homemade dialogs using DLLs, but I don't think that's what you really want.
