datflo

Hi, I've seen this done, and I thought it would be simple now that I am starting to understand ajax but I can't figure it out. I am using jQuery ajax via wordpress. I can click a button, call a php function and use the value returned from php to populate the textbox. Ok, great! but I want to run a rather lengthy procedure, and while it's running I would like it to record it's status in a multi-line text box as sort of a debugger ( and to pass the time while waiting ) How can I accomplish this? I've googled but I must not be using the correct words to search.