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Olden days: 1.) Visitor fills out form 2.) Visitor clicks submit button 3.) Page looks stalled forever while php/cURL script retrievs shipping label from slow 3rd party server. 4.) While waiting, Visitor ponders how they hate slow websites and then unplugs computer. Today (year 2021) 1.) Visitor fills out form 2.) Visitor clicks submit button 3.) Then what? What are the "best practices" implemented now? ...... Based on today's self-study, it appears this is a good technique: • Visitor clicks submit button. • Skeleton page appears that says "Thank you please wait while your shipping label is loaded" • Shipping label appears • Visitor ponders "What a neat fast website." I'm thinking I could do it like this: #1.) I turn that "final page" (that slow one that uses cURL to retrieve shipping label) into an Ajax target. #2.) When the visitor clicks submit button, they immediately see my skeleton page (which actually targets the Ajax target) #3.) Shipping label magically appears. Am I on the right track? Or, at my skill level (a " . 5 " on a scale of 1 to 10) would I be better off to leave things as they are, but simply add an animation overlay while the cURL script runs? As I'm typing out this question.... it appears the actual issue is the default behavior: $_POST pages stay there until all scripts finish running, then the final page loads. I am trying to provide the appearance of a "final page" immediately loading before the scripts finish running.....