How can I display a message on a Web page as it loads?

I would like to know if there is any way to display a message on a Web page as it loads. For example, if I'm loading a real bulky view embedded on a page, I want to display a simple message like "Loading...please wait." until the view finally loads. Then the message must disappear.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
That's a bit tricky. If the view is an HTML view (not the applet, and it probably won't be the applet), what you're waiting for is actually all of the HTML document to download. And you can't have anything happening while you're downloading.

My first suggestion would be to modify your view to be less bulky.

Assuming that that's not good enough, maybe this approach can be of help to you, but it will probably require you to change your application quite a lot:

  • Load the view in a frame.

  • When the user clicks a link that loads the view, let the action in the link be a JavaScript that first displays a "Loading...please wait" message (this would be DHTML -- let the JavaScript unhide the message that is already on the page) in a different frame than the one holding the view.

  • Then let the JavaScript load the view in the view frame.

  • On the page holding the view (use a $$ViewTemplate) put an onLoad event that hides the "Loading...please wait" message.

This was first published in May 2003

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