Using the "animated circle" in an ImageView while loading stuff

This is generally referred to as an Indeterminate Progress Bar or Indeterminate Progress Dialog.

Combine this with a Thread and a Handler to get exactly what you want. There are a number of examples on how to do this via Google or right here on SO. I would highly recommend spending the time to learn how to use this combination of classes to perform a task like this. It is incredibly useful across many types of applications and will give you a great insight into how Threads and Handlers can work together.

I'll get you started on how this works:

The loading event starts the dialog:

//maybe in onCreate
showDialog(MY_LOADING_DIALOG);
fooThread = new FooThread(handler);
fooThread.start();

Now the thread does the work:

private class FooThread extends Thread {
    Handler mHandler;

    FooThread(Handler h) {
        mHandler = h;
    }

    public void run() { 
        //Do all my work here....you might need a loop for this

        Message msg = mHandler.obtainMessage();
        Bundle b = new Bundle();                
        b.putInt("state", 1);   
        msg.setData(b);
        mHandler.sendMessage(msg);
    }
}

Finally get the state back from the thread when it is complete:

final Handler handler = new Handler() {
    public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
        int state = msg.getData().getInt("state");
        if (state == 1){
            dismissDialog(MY_LOADING_DIALOG);
            removeDialog(MY_LOADING_DIALOG);
        }
    }
};

Simply put this block of xml in your activity layout file:

<RelativeLayout
    android:id="@+id/loadingPanel"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:gravity="center" >

    <ProgressBar
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:indeterminate="true" />
</RelativeLayout>

And when you finish loading, call this one line:

findViewById(R.id.loadingPanel).setVisibility(View.GONE);

The result (and it spins too):

You can use this code from firebase github samples ..

You don't need to edit in layout files ... just make a new class "BaseActivity"

package com.example;

import android.app.ProgressDialog;
import android.support.annotation.VisibleForTesting;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;


public class BaseActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @VisibleForTesting
    public ProgressDialog mProgressDialog;

    public void showProgressDialog() {
        if (mProgressDialog == null) {
            mProgressDialog = new ProgressDialog(this);
            mProgressDialog.setMessage("Loading ...");
            mProgressDialog.setIndeterminate(true);
        }

        mProgressDialog.show();
    }


    public void hideProgressDialog() {
        if (mProgressDialog != null && mProgressDialog.isShowing()) {
            mProgressDialog.dismiss();
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onStop() {
        super.onStop();
        hideProgressDialog();
    }

}

In your Activity that you want to use the progress dialog ..

public class MyActivity extends BaseActivity

Before/After the function that take time

showProgressDialog();
.... my code that take some time
showProgressDialog();

You can do this by using the following xml

<RelativeLayout
    style="@style/GenericProgressBackground"
    android:id="@+id/loadingPanel"
    >
    <ProgressBar
        style="@style/GenericProgressIndicator"/>
</RelativeLayout>

With this style

<style name="GenericProgressBackground" parent="android:Theme">
    <item name="android:layout_width">fill_parent</item>    
    <item name="android:layout_height">fill_parent</item>
    <item name="android:background">#DD111111</item>    
    <item name="android:gravity">center</item>  
</style>
<style name="GenericProgressIndicator" parent="@android:style/Widget.ProgressBar.Small">
    <item name="android:layout_width">wrap_content</item>
    <item name="android:layout_height">wrap_content</item>
    <item name="android:indeterminate">true</item> 
</style>

To use this, you must hide your UI elements by setting the visibility value to GONE and whenever the data is loaded, call setVisibility(View.VISIBLE) on all your views to restore them. Don't forget to call findViewById(R.id.loadingPanel).setVisiblity(View.GONE) to hide the loading animation.

If you dont have a loading event/function but just want the loading panel to disappear after x seconds use a Handle to trigger the hiding/showing.