If you want to inform your website visitors that there are more information to be displayed or still to be loaded on your page, you may need a “loading gif”, a loading icon, an “AJAX loader” icon or whatever you named it. I simply called it an “AJAX loading” icon or a preloader image. An AJAX loading icon is commonly used on AJAX-base sites and applications, informing the user that the site is still processing the request and is fetching some data.

The problem is these “loading gif” images is not easy to create unless you have the skills to do so. Fortunately, there are online tools which will generate these AJAX loading icons with a few clicks. There are even some that doesn’t require images but use either JavaScript or CSS3 to achieve a loading icon image effect. There are also other sites that have a collection of ready-to-download loading icon images.

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  Preloaders.net

  Preloaders.net has a fantastic categorized collection of APNG and GIF AJAX loaders images. You can set your preloaders’ image type (support APNG & GIF), background (transparent is available) and foreground color, size with constrain proportion option, animation speed and many other options.

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  CSSLoad.net

  If you want to have an AJAX loading icon but don’t want to use an image to save HTTP request, this CSS3 loading spinner generator is for you. It makes use of of CSS3 transitions, transforms and CSS3 animation to achieve a “loading GIF” image effect.

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  spin.js

  spin.js is another spinner or preloader generator that doesn’t use any images. It used JavaScript for modern browsers and uses VML as fallback in old IEs to have a loading icon image effect. It doesn’t require any JavaScript library to work but it does have jQuery plugin which you might want to check out.

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  CanvasLoader Creator

  Heartcode CanvasLoader Creator is a free online tool which you can use to generate preloaders (spinners or throbblers). This loading icon generator uses the CanvasLoader UI Library – a lightweight JavaScript UI library which can be used to create spinners using the HTML5 Canvas object in modern browsers, or VML in older ones. Same with spin.js, no external images or CSS are required.

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  NETEYE Activity Indicator

  This is jQuery plugin that renders a vector-based, translucent activity indicator (spinner) using SVG or VML. No images or external CSS are required, works in all major browsers (including IE6), supports Alpha transparency, degrades gracefully and is highly configurable. Unfortunately, this doesn’t have a UI so you have to manually pass some options into your code.

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  Ajaxload

  Ajaxload.info is still in Beta and the only option for it’s loading icon that you can set is it’s background and foreground color. It has only a limited number of loading GIFs compared to Preloaders.net.

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  Chimply

  Chimply is in beta stage but it has also a nice collection of categorized Ajax loading icons (spinner and animated bar icons). Common settings/options include background and foreground colors, animation speed, width and size. You can download the generated loading icon in GIF & SWF formats.

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  Loading GIF

  Loading GIF Image Generator has some few, nice loading icons ready to download. Unlike most of the loading image generators, the only customization you can made on the loading image icon is it’s background and foreground color.

Worthy To Mention Loading GIF Generators / Collection

Tags: ajax loader, ajax loading gif, ajax loading icon, ajax preloader, ajax preloader images, loader gif, loading gif, loading icon