UI Terminology - Enabled vs. Active

When designing a feature that can be accessed by different user levels, I'm wondering how the use of "enabled" versus "active" will work. If I'm an administrator, it means I have the ability to turn on and off a feature. Does this mean the feature is enabled for me or active? Once I turn this feature on, is it then enabled or active? Terminology is the pits.

O开发者_如何转开发n the subject, does anyone know of a reference book or site dedicated to questions regarding standard terminology for UIs? Thanks a million!

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Enabled = "can respond to events" or "on"

Active = "has focus" or "current item"

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It's too late to answer this question but it might be helpful for other people.

If I'm an administrator, it means I have the ability to turn on and off a feature. Does this mean the feature is enabled for me or active?

If you are an administrator then you have the license to turn on/off any feature. So turning on a feature means you are enabling the feature to be accessible by you and other users. So being an administrator you can see the feature because you are legit to see the feature, and when you on this feature for other people as well they can see the feature and use the feature. So for you and others, the feature is Enabled and not Active.

Once I turn this feature on, is it then enabled or active?

Once you turn on the feature it remains Enabled and can be used by authorized and authenticated users until you turn off the feature again. And the feature will become active when it is being used. So while for the time it is being used, that is the time when you call the feature Active because it has some processing to do and has focus.

Detailed Explanation:

Like @Bob said

Enabled = "can respond to events" or "on"

Enabled means the item or anything that is enabled, means the item is in a state that it can answer the queries or connection or perform the operation if asked to perform. Try to understand it in the terms of server, when a server is up (Enabled) and you ping the server from the command prompt your request can be listened to by the server and responded accordingly. But if a server is down (Disabled), the server can not listen to your request and thus can not respond to your request.

Active = "has focus" or "current item"

While Active means the item is at the current moment of time is actively performing some task or listening to your request or processing. In terms of server, when you try to ping the server and it's enabled, then it listens to your request and processes your request. For a time, when the server is processing your request, this is the time when the server is Active and has focus, and once the server has done its processing, it will again go back into another state that is InActive and loses focus.

If you look at the following image:

In this image of Wireless Network Connection Status window form, Media State is Enabled. This means SSID Re-Invent 2 can listen to requests and respond because it is enabled.

And if you look below section Activity, there you will see that the data is actively increasing in real-time and that is happening because this SSID is Enabled and currently listening to requests and that's why we are able to see changes/activity of requests and responses in real-time in form of data sent and received actively.