<p>I would like display something more meaningful that animated gif while users upload file to my web application. What possibilities do I have? </p>

<p><em>Edit: I am using .Net but I don't mind if somebody shows me platform agnostic version.</em></p>

[{'answer_id': 49567, 'author': 'Niyaz', 'author_id': 184, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/184', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>A good example of doing this without using Ajax is given <a href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/Simple_Progress_bar.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">at CodeProject by Nilesh Thakkar</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 49589, 'author': 'NakedBrunch', 'author_id': 3742, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3742', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>ASP.NET File Upload with <em>Real-Time</em> Progress Bar</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://mattberseth.com/blog/2008/07/aspnet_file_upload_with_realti_1.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://mattberseth.com/blog/2008/07/aspnet_file_upload_with_realti_1.html</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 49590, 'author': 'Matt Sheppard', 'author_id': 797, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/797', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Here are a couple of versions of what you\'re looking for for some common JavaScript toolkits.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Mootools - <a href="http://digitarald.de/project/fancyupload/" rel="noreferrer">http://digitarald.de/project/fancyupload/</a></li>\n<li>Extjs - <a href="http://extjs.com/learn/Extension:UploadForm" rel="noreferrer">http://extjs.com/learn/Extension:UploadForm</a></li>\n</ul>\n'}, {'answer_id': 49753, 'author': 'Jason Bunting', 'author_id': 1790, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1790', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Some good .NET-specific help for doing progress bars can be found in Dino Esposito\'s MSDN Magazine articles from last July and August:</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163393.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>Context-Sensitive Feedback with AJAX (July \'07)</strong></a><br>\n<a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163380.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>Canceling Server Tasks with ASP.NET AJAX (August \'07)</strong></a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 49804, 'author': 'pilif', 'author_id': 5083, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5083', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>If you are interested how all this generally works client-site, this is it:</p>\n\n<p>All the solutions hook up the form via javascript and change the forms target to a newly created, invisible IFRAME. Then they are free to use AJAX to request some status about the file from the server.</p>\n\n<p>The IFRAME trick is needed because all the scripts running in the window that is doing the upload will hang until the the request is completed at which time the file is fully uploaded. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 51641, 'author': 'georgebrock', 'author_id': 5168, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5168', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'ve tried various techniques and had most success with <a href="http://swfupload.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SWFUpload</a>.</p>\n\n<p>You create and interact with an SWFUpload object using Javascript, but uses a (hidden) Flash file for file selection, uploading and upload progress monitoring. You can specify a wide range of Javascript event handlers (<code>uploadStarted</code>, <code>uploadProgress</code>, <code>uploadError</code> etc.) that the Flash will call during the upload progress making it very flexible. It also implements a file queue, so it works well for single or multiple files.</p>\n\n<p><em>Links:</em></p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://demo.swfupload.org/Documentation/#methods" rel="nofollow noreferrer">API documentation</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://demo.swfupload.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Demos</a></li>\n<li><a href="http://code.google.com/p/swfupload/downloads/list" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Downloads</a></li>\n</ul>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1347264, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>jQuery UI Progressbar - <a href="http://jqueryui.com/demos/progressbar/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://jqueryui.com/demos/progressbar/</a></p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/49564', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2361/']