How do I force the OSX mouse cursor to change to a “wait cursor”? Looking through Apple’s docs I see this:
The Application Kit provides two ready-made cursors for commonly used cursor images. You can retrieve these cursors by using the arrowCursor and IBeamCursor class methods. There is no NSCursor instance for the wait cursor, because the system automatically displays it at the appropriate times.
This is fine…but if, for example, I’m making an async call to an RO SDK service that might take a few seconds, I’d like to show some indication to the user that the system is waiting for something. How is this best accomplished?
Simple answer: don’t. Your UI should never ever block. That’s want a sync calls are for. If you see a beach ball (or a wait cursor on windows), you’ve blown it (to paraphrase Steve Jobs ;).
Ideally, async requests should run w/o interfering with the user. If the user MUST me made to wait, you should show appropriate UI (such as disabling the controls in the one window and or showing a Spinner).