[Seaside] Implement "please wait" message using smallfaces.

[Timothy James Ziebart]

Hi all.  I've built a fairly complex interface using SmallFaces 
components. 

9 listboxes,  4 buttons,  3 labels, 1 panel and two custom components 
(subclasses of SFAbstractWidget -  search results and a map).  Selecting 
an option in one listbox results in a chain of events being executed - 
the contents of two other listboxes are updated, a search conducted on a 
remote server and the results being displayed including label and button 
statuses being updated.   There are no submit or search buttons - 
selecting a listbox option starts the process (I will be adding the 
functionality to include the search button should the user not have 
javascript on).  There are no forms.  It works well - that is not the 
problem.

The challenge I have is due to the delay in getting data from the remote 
server I would like to implement a "please wait" message while the data 
is being retrieved.  I am not having any success getting it to work. 

I tried a SUPeriodical object reading a variable holding updated message 
text but, it stops while the data is being retrieved and will display 
the content only when the remaining components are updated -- too late. 
   Is it possible to have an element update the content and display the 
results before the remainder of the requests are processed? What would 
that look like?  Does SUEvaluater/updater update content and render 
before processing the next script?

I was looking at Ramon Leon's Ajax Polling and Concurrency articles 
thinking I may have to head in that direction.   Is that the direction I 
need to head in?  Any suggestions would be helpful.

As you can tell I am confused about the sequence when a element on a 
page has it's content updated and when the browser displays the results 
using ajax.

Thank you for the help.

Tim