MVC3 - Ajax loading icon

Define your link as an Ajax action link and specify the ID of a spinning GIF somewhere on your page.

<div id="result"></div><img id="spinner" src="../content/ajaxspinner.gif" style="display: none;">@Ajax.ActionLink("Link Text", "ActionName", "ControllerName", null, new AjaxOptions{UpdateTargetId = "result", LoadingElementId = "spinner"}, null)

or if it is a form:

@using(Ajax.BeginForm("Action", "Controller", null, new AjaxOptions{UpdateTargetId = "result", LoadingElementId = "spinner"}, null)){   @Html.TextBox("Data")<br/>   <input type="submit" value="Submit" />}

Put the image in a div tag like this:

<div id="busydiv" style="display:none;"><img src="busything.gif" /></div>

and then create your link like this:

@Ajax.ActionLink("Link Text", "ActionName", "ControllerName", null, new AjaxOptions { LoadingElementDuration = 1000, LoadingElementId = "busyDiv", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "targetDiv", OnFailure = "PostFailure", OnSuccess = "PostSuccess", OnComplete = "PostOnComplete" }, null)

or in a form do this:

@using (Ajax.BeginForm("TestAjax", new AjaxOptions { LoadingElementDuration=1000, LoadingElementId="dave", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "targetDiv", OnFailure = "PostFailure", OnSuccess = "PostSuccess", OnComplete = "PostOnComplete" }))

Obviously omitting those AjaxOptions that you don't need, as per the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.ajax.ajaxoptions.aspx

Just my two cents:

The solution posted by Chris is valid and will work BUT you must add a reference to the two javascript libraries below. Please note that the order matters:

<script src="~/scripts/jquery-1.8.0.js"></script><script src="~/scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js"></script>

When you create an MVC application pre-loaded with bundling and all these nu-get packages this will probably not be a problem for you but if you were like me and created an empty ASP.NET MVC application you might run into issues.