[whatwg] Status bars and progress indicators

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Matthew Raymond wrote:
> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
> 
>>HTML shouldn't give the user agent any kind of direction on rendering
>>
>>How about:
>>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.

+1 for "status". I think "gauge" (I prefer this spelling even though 
I live in Finland) gives too much direction for rendering. Somehow I 
immediately think round display when somebody says "gauge".

Regardless of the word that ends up being used I think the element 
should also have property to tell which value is "GOOD" and which is 
"BAD". For example, for search results having 95% to render as green 
bar is okay whereas 95% for CPU temperature is bad and it should be 
rendered as red. Obviously the indicator for good/bad could be 
something else but color but you get the idea.

Make sure to support status/gauge where good value is something in 
between. For example, think motor temperature of an automobile; it's 
bad if it's too low and it's bad if it's too high.

-- 
Mikko