All of the PHP is a just a waist, this could easily be simpli...

All of the PHP is a just a waist, this could easily be simplified by just using CSS. The big problem I have is that it isn't really a progress bar it is just a moving background image that "looks" like a progress bar.

You are exactly right. This is not a "true" progress bar. It is merely meant to visualize the "progress" of a particular item. For example "used filespace / total" or "eggs eaten / a dozen"

And, yes, obiously you can use just CSS to do this statically. The PHP part (hense the class) is for creating the progress bar dynamically. (for example considering the example above, the filespace can be obtained through php)

...in effect this is a "static" progress bar -- and yes, I know that is a contradtictory statement ;-)

Let me know if you have any questions.

javascript+simple php and that's all.
I don't see this usefull

It doesn't even use javascript it is just a moving image used as a background. To make a true HTML progress bar you would have to use AJAX.

All these comments are valid. Again--this "animated" portion of this progress bar is not really needed (gives the user a poor indication of what's happening). I'll turn this off as the default view.

The more practical way of using this bar is without the animation. ("static view"). This should make more sense to you.

Consider the example on this page:
seandempsey.com/clients/verite.php

I am calculating the "days left" in the clients support package using PHP (a difference of dates) and then comparing this to total days purchased. Using the class to do the "visualize" part is a one liner.

To me this class is helpful. If you don't find it such, you do not have to use it.

Now that is a way more practical way of using this class. The way demonstrated was not. You should change the example included with the class.