My friend HTMLstig has this nice little Pre-Loader script:
Step 1:
In the <HEAD> tags, place the following code:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Begin
function clearPreloadPage() { //DOM
if (document.getElementById){
document.getElementById('prepage').style.visibility='hidden';
}else{
if (document.layers){ //NS4
document.prepage.visibility = 'hidden';
}
else { //IE4
document.all.prepage.style.visibility = 'hidden';
}
}
}
// End -->
</SCRIPT>
Step 2:
Change the <body> tag into:
<BODY onLoad="clearPreloadPage();">
Step 3:
Straight after the new Body tag, place the following code:
<div id="prepage" style="position:absolute; font-family:arial; font-size:16; left:0px;
top:0px; background-color:white; layer-background-color:white; height:100%; width:100%;z-index:500;">
<table width=100%><tr><td>Loading ... ... Please wait!</td></tr></table>
</div>
TIP: You can change this to show a different message