For a project I am working on, I needed to be able to put a very obvious ajax loading indicator on top of the element being updated via the ajax call.  I wrote a simple plugin that will darken the selected elements and put an ajax loader graphic on them.  All you need to do to invoke it is call: [js]$("#element_to_curtain").curtain();[/js] The only configuration on it right now is for the ajax loader image.  With all the current options, the call looks like this: [js]$("element_to_curtain").curtain({ loader_image: '/images/ajax-loader.gif', loader_height: 100, loader_width: 100 });[/js] If loader_image is an empty string, then the loader image will not be added. The loader_height and loader_width are the size in pixels of the loader image. This is only used to calculate the offsets when placing the graphic in the center of the curtain. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can either visit the project homepage or the github page: http://github.com/paulelliott/jquery-curtain/tree/master