How to show loading spinner in jQuery?

There are a couple of ways. My preferred way is to attach a function to the ajaxStart/Stop events on the element itself.

$('#loadingDiv')
    .hide()  // Hide it initially
    .ajaxStart(function() {
        $(this).show();
    })
    .ajaxStop(function() {
        $(this).hide();
    })
;

The ajaxStart/Stop functions will fire whenever you do any Ajax calls.

Update: As of jQuery 1.8, the documentation states that .ajaxStart/Stop should only be attached to document. This would transform the above snippet to:

var $loading = $('#loadingDiv').hide();
$(document)
  .ajaxStart(function () {
    $loading.show();
  })
  .ajaxStop(function () {
    $loading.hide();
  });

You can just use the jQuery's .ajax function and use its option beforeSend and define some function in which you can show something like a loader div and on success option you can hide that loader div.

jQuery.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: 'YOU_URL_TO_WHICH_DATA_SEND',
    data:'YOUR_DATA_TO_SEND',
    beforeSend: function() {
        $("#loaderDiv").show();
    },
    success: function(data) {
        $("#loaderDiv").hide();
    }
});

You can have any Spinning Gif image. Here is a website that is a great AJAX Loader Generator according to your color scheme: http://ajaxload.info/

For jQuery I use

jQuery.ajaxSetup({
  beforeSend: function() {
     $('#loader').show();
  },
  complete: function(){
     $('#loader').hide();
  },
  success: function() {}
});