ondisplay

Ondisplay is a term used in discussions of display technology and user interfaces to describe content that is currently visible on a screen to the user. It is formed from the phrase on display and is not a formal standard term, but it appears in design briefs, specifications, and casual documentation to distinguish visible content from elements that are hidden or off-screen.

In user interface design, on-display content is the portion of the interface immediately accessible to the user without scrolling or extra actions. It helps designers specify priorities, animation timing, and data loading strategies. In web development, an element is considered on display when its rendered display property is not none and it appears within the current viewport, possibly after layout calculations.

Practical techniques for managing on-display status include using the IntersectionObserver API to detect when an element enters or leaves the viewport, and applying CSS strategies such as responsive layouts and lazy loading to ensure that essential content is on display while noncritical content is deferred.

In digital signage and dashboards, on-display items refer to content actively shown on the main screen. The term is editorial rather than normative, so writers should define its precise meaning in context, such as specifying the viewport, the active tab, or the area of the screen considered to be visible.

See also: display, visibility, viewport, lazy loading, IntersectionObserver.