[whatwg] Status bars and progress indicators

[Daniel O'Connor]

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:30:47 -0400, Matthew Raymond
<mattraymond at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
> >HTML shouldn't give the user agent any kind of direction on rendering
> >of controls, and gage kind of makes me thing of dials and speedometers
> >:D
> >
> >How about:
> ><indicator>
> >or...
> ><progress>
> >or...
> ><status>
> 
>     You're thinking <progressmeter>, which was already suggested. The
> element <gauge>/<gage> (I do not pretend to have accurate information on
> which spelling is more widely used), is intended to show a percentage in
> situations where a progress meter would be confusing, like in search
> engines where they give you a percent match to your query. This need not
> resemble a progress bar.
> 

I know what I'm talking about :D
A gauge is an indicator just like a progress bar. Why not just merge
the two if at all possible.

<indicator id="progress" min="0" max="100" value="0" title="Loading
progress" alt="Not Yet Loaded" type="bar" />

(avoid this english UK/US confusion, i'm an aussie and we say Gauge!
and dial makes me think of an analog gauge)

That way, javascript can be used to increment in stages an item like a
progress bar and apply a text label to it.

(enjoy the wonders of ascii art)

[Loading progress: 70%]
0% ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||       100%
request sent

or

[Loading progress: 70%]  0% [||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||      ]
100% [ request sent ]

A gauge and a statusbar are joined at the hip, if you want a
progress-indictator gauge to have appropriate "alternate" text for
accessability purposes. A statusbar by itself is just a gauge with
undefined min/max numerical values, its purpose is a textual indicator
of progress.

[Loading progress] Contacting server...

.... or at least thats how I see it.
I admit I've not even looked at Dashboard.

-- 
http://www.ahsonline.com.au/dod/FOAF.rdf