Unlike many gauge controls, MESCIUS gauges concentrate on the data being displayed, with little extraneous color and markup elements. They were designed to be easy to use and to read, especially on small-screen devices.

MESCIUS gauges are composed of Range objects. Every MESCIUS gauge has at least two ranges: the "face" and the "pointer".

• The "face" represents the gauge background. The "min" and "max" properties of the face range correspond to the "min" and "max" properties of the gauge control, and limit the values that the gauge can display.
• The "pointer" is the range that indicates the gauge's current value. The "max" property of the pointer range corresponds to the "value" property of the gauge.

In addition to these two special ranges, gauges may have any number of additional ranges added to their "ranges" collection. These additional ranges can be used for two things:

• By default, the extra ranges appear as part of the gauge background. This way you can show 'zones' within the gauge, like 'good,' 'average,' and 'bad' for example.
• If you set the gauge's "showRanges" property to false, the additional ranges are not shown. Instead, they are used to automatically set the color of the "pointer" based on the current value.