The Java Plug-in needs to provide an option to display a spash screen image. This would be helpful in improving the loading process, especially when the applet takes long to load. This image would appear in the center of the applet area while the applet is loading and disappears when the applet has been loaded. Something like PARAM NAME="SPLASH" VALUE="images/mylogo.jpg" could be introduced into the OBJECT tag for IE and likewise for the EMBED tag for Netscape.