A splash screen is an image that appears while a computer program is loading. It may also be used to describe an introduction page on a website. Splash screens sometimes do not cover the entire screen, but only a rectangle near the center. The splash screens of operating systems and some applications that expect to be run full-screen usually cover the entire screen.

Purpose

Splash screens are typically used by especially large applications to notify the user that the program is in the process of loading. In other words, they provide feedback that a sometimes lengthy process is under way. Occasionally, a progress bar within the splash screen indicates the loading progress. A splash screen disappears when the application's main window appears.

Splash screens typically serve to enhance the look and feel of an application or web site, and hence are often visually appealing, and may also have animations, graphics and sound.

The Java programming language has a specific function for creating splash screens called java.awt.SplashScreen ^[1] that handles standard splash screen functions (i.e. display an image centered on screen then disappear when the first program window opens).

On the Internet, a splash screen or splash page is a page of a web site that is a sort of pre-home page front page. Designers may use splash pages:

• to restrict access to content such as pornography, alcohol advertising or sales, or gambling;
• to direct users to the appropriate website for their country or language;
• to direct users to a low-bandwidth site or one more accessible to disabled users;
• as an aesthetic complement to the main page;
• as an additional form of advertising.

An early use of the Splash screen on a Flash Website was to enable the site developer to launch the site in a Javascript controlled new window--without browser elements such as scrollbars, address bar, etc. and in the exact size of the Flash movie. This has gone out of style with the predominance of pop-up blockers. Instead many starting Flash Web pages now allow their audience to choose to go to full screen viewing.

Since splash screens often increase the distance to the desired content and may take a long time to load, they are not universally liked by users. Web splash screens are especially inconvenient for users with slow internet connections as the first page may take longer to load or if the user has turned off rich content (such as images, Flash or Shockwave), the splash page may not load at all. Splash pages created in Flash (and the associated main pages) often cannot be accessed by search engines or handled by text readers for the blind.

Splash screens can also be created in HTML and CSS if they are designed for a purpose other then as a loading screen and instead used for another purpose, such as giving the option to pick the language.