I have some javascript functions that take about 1 to 3 seconds. (some loops or mooML templating code.)

During this time, the browser is just frozen. I tried showing a "loading" animation (gif image) before starting the operation and hiding it afterwords. but it just doesnt work. The browser freezes before it could render the image and hides it immediately when the function ends.

Is there anything I can do to tell the browser to update the screen before going into javascript execution., Something like Application.DoEvents or background worker threads.

So any comments/suggestions about how to show javascript execution progress. My primary target browser is IE6, but should also work on all latest browsers