Show image while page is loading

Question

My webpage is using some api's together and the total process time for the page to load is around 8 seconds. I want to show a page loading image while the page is loading. Could be like the whole page is dimmed out and an image is shown which represents the page loading and once the page loads i want to go back to my page. How can i show this functionality in a php website?

Little more info: The page is not even loading until all the visualizations in the page have completely loaded. In other words, the URL of the page is not even changing as soon as the link is clicked. As soon as the link is changing, the webpage is loaded, so any solution or reason why this is happening?

I am actually using GAPI class to get Google analytics feed and using google visualization javascript api to show the images. I am using multiple GAPI for different data parameter calls since one certain combinations wont work in one command...

a sample:

$pie->requestReportData(ga_profile_id,array('browser'),array('pageviews'),'-pageviews','',$start_date,$end_date,$start_index=1,$max_results=50); $ga->requestReportData(ga_profile_id,array('date'),array('visits','visitors'),'date','',$start_date,$end_date,$start_index=1,$max_results=50);

The values returned are stored in an array and used for google visualization api.

Each of this is stored in seperate files and i am calling them using include ();

Answer 1

Use jQuery...

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function()
{
    $("#loading").hide();
});
</script>

Right below body start tag put...

<img id="loading" alt="" src="ajax.gif"/>

You can create some ajax loading gifs here... http://www.ajaxload.info/

Add this CSS...

#loading{position:fixed;top:50%;left:50%;z-index:1104;}

Update

Replace with this JS code, leave the googlecode line.

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function()
{
    $("#info").load("info.php");
    $("#linechart").load("linechart.php");
    $("#piechart").load("piechart.php");
    $("#loading").hide();
});
</script>

HTML:

<div id="#info"></div>
<div id="#linechart"></div>
<div id="#piechart"></div>

Hope it helps.