Here’s a simple way to generate an hourglass on demand, regardless of what the mouse is over.
Create a document-element class:
html.waitCursor * { cursor: wait; }
When the <html> tag has a class of "waitCursor", the mouse would become an hourglass over the entire page and all elements, including any margin outside the BODY area. Create a pair of simple functions that can be called in global scope:
function beginWait { document.documentElement.className = ‘waitCursor’; }
function endWait { document.documentElement.className = ‘’; }
From John Black on http://swik.net/Ajax/Ajax+Mistakes
