I am using a lot of observe_fields in my views. I have two searches on my form, one with two fields one with four, and every time a user types something the observe_field is triggered and some search is executed via AJAX. To make sure the user knows what is going on, i use a spinner-image. [ruby] <%= observe_field 'querypeople', :frequency => 1, :update => 'people_to_link', :before => "Element.show('spinner2')", :loaded => "Element.hide('spinner2')", :complete => "Element.hide('spinner2')", :url => {:action => 'listpeople'}, :with => " 'querypeople=' +escape($('querypeople').value) + '&queryorganisation=' + escape($('queryorganisation').value)" %> <%= observe_field 'queryorganisation', :frequency => 1, :update => 'people_to_link', :before => "Element.show('spinner2')", :loaded => "Element.hide('spinner2')", :complete => "Element.hide('spinner2')", :url => {:action => 'listpeople'}, :with => " 'querypeople=' +escape($('querypeople').value) + '&queryorganisation=' + escape($('queryorganisation').value)" %> [/ruby] This works all fine and dandy, but when a user types multiple characters in a row, the spinner is hidden while another query is running. So i needed to improve that. I first introduced a little code to count how many times a certain spinner is shown: [ruby] <% javascript_tag do %> var spinner_counter=[0,0,0]; function show_spinner(itm) { spinner = (itm == 0) ? "spinner2" : "spinner" ; Element.show(spinner); spinner_counter[itm] = spinner_counter[itm] + 1; } function hide_spinner(itm) { spinner = (itm == 0) ? "spinner2" : "spinner" ; spinner_counter[itm] = spinner_counter[itm] - 1; if (spinner_counter[itm] <= 0) { Element.hide(spinner); spinner_counter[itm] = 0; } } <% end %> [/ruby] and then adapted the ruby-code as follows: [ruby] <%= observe_field 'querypeople', :frequency => 1, :update => 'people_to_link', :before => "show_spinner(0)", :complete => "hide_spinner(0)", :url => {:action => 'listpeople'}, :with => " 'querypeople=' +escape($('querypeople').value) + '&queryorganisation=' + escape($('queryorganisation').value)" %> <%= observe_field 'queryorganisation', :frequency => 1, :update => 'people_to_link', :before => "show_spinner(0)", :complete => "hide_spinner(0)", :url => {:action => 'listpeople'}, :with => " 'querypeople=' +escape($('querypeople').value) + '&queryorganisation=' + escape($('queryorganisation').value)" %> [/ruby] Do you know a better solution?