Splash screen

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A splash screen in Inkscape with the logo and version information
A splash screen in Inkscape with the logo and version information

Splash screen is a term used to describe an image that appears while a computer program is loading. 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.

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[edit] 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. A splash screen disappears when the applications 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.

[edit] Splash pages

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 (as is required by law in many countries, including the United States and Canada);
  • 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 additional form of advertising.

Since splash screens may sometimes 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 Shockwave Flash) 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.

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