This isn’t an end-all-be-all solution to fixing all weird IE z-index issues, but it certainly can help in some circumstances. What it does is loop through each of the elements that you declare and apply ever-declining z-index values on them. IE gets this backwards, and this sets it correctly. The reason it’s not end-all-be-all is because sometimes it’s not DOM-order that you need z-index to be in, and sometimes scoping comes into play as well.
Nonetheless, the view the demo in IE 7 (thanks Dan Nicholls) to see the broken version on top and the fixed version below.
jQuery Version
$(function() {
var zIndexNumber = 1000;
// Put your target element(s) in the selector below!
$("div").each(function() {
$(this).css('zIndex', zIndexNumber);
zIndexNumber -= 10;
});
});MooTools Version
if(Browser.Engine.trident){
var zIndexNumber = 1000;
// Put your target element(s) in the selector below!
$$('div').each(function(el,i){
el.setStyle('z-index',zIndexNumber);
zIndexNumber -= 10;
});
};
The MooTools version has an ‘if IE’ statement, which you may not need if you put it in conditional comments. You can use jQuery to do the same thing, though conditional comments are considered more stable. You only need to target IE7 and below.
Also, scan the CSS in the demo for some polishing of the result that jQuery gives you.
Kl. will come in handy.
Thanks for posting this. Good stuff.
Nice fix for the z-index, though something goes wrong when “hiding” the additional content in IE6. It doesn’t go away, and covers the normal content until the page is refreshed.
This works but I’m just wondering will this bring any performance issue since jQuery has to grab all the divs and assign it a z-index every time a page is loaded?
PrototypeJS Method:
var zIndexNumber = 1000;
$$("div").each(function(e) {
e.setStyle({ zIndex: zIndexNumber });
zIndexNumber -= 10;
});
Good job. Thanks for your share.
Fantastic.. Mootools script was the only thing that saved me!!
THANK YOU FOR THIS FIX (yes, the caps are intentional :-) ).
Any luck with fixing this problem with different DOM order? Need a footer graphic to stick at the bottom of the sidebar but stay behind the widgets and overlap something else. Works everywhere I support but IE7
Please help… I am having problem in IE7, the drop down is hiding behind the css portfolio in the following link.
http://www.netscribes.com/k12solutions/portfolio.html
I need to correct it immediately. Please help.
Thanks Buddy, You saved my day.
Thanks a million ! That was just the fix I urgently needed.
Hi guys,
I need an idea about a z-index issue on IE. Here’s my html markup:
<div style="position:relative"> <div style="position:absolute"> <a style="position:absolute"> close button </a> </div> </div>The anchor (close button) is partially outside of it’s parent but it gets cut at the parent’s border. Is there a way to make the anchor look right?
Thanks!
It seems to work . Thank you!
You are genius dude! Thanks a lot ! Now I can chill out and watch a movie.
I tried for a long time using just CSS to get items to get absolutely positioned items to appear over one another in a list in IE7 but gave up. Tried Chris’s jQuery code but it didn’t fix it, so I wrote this quick function below that sets the current items z-index to a high amount, while lowering the rest of the siblings. Although it works a treat, it is only an example and can definitely be improved…
var z_index_max = 1000,
z_index_default = 100;
$(“ul li”).bind(“mouseover”, function(){
$(this).css(“z-index”,z_index_max).siblings(“li”).css(“z-index”,z_index_default);
}).bind(“mouseout”, function(){
$(this).css(“z-index”,z_index_default).siblings(“li”).css(“z-index”,z_index_default);
});
This worked great!
I had an Issue with some content disappearing, but I upped the variable zIndexNumber to 3000 and everything works great now.
This little snippet of code successfully prevented me from going insane today, trying to troubleshoot IE7 with a jQuery form validation plugin. I’m working on a very high-profile project, and the bug I was getting with jQuery-generated error message tooltips appearing beneath labels was of course not cool.
Thank you!
question: where does Chris’ jquery snippet go in a wordpress theme? In functions.php?
Sorry, newbie here..
Thanks for trick. This hack-idea saved me
Just noticed the background transition on the textarea, love it!
Just what I needed! Thanks.
This worked great for me, where I had menu’s going behind sliders.
Used the following code:
var zIndexNumber = 1000;
$(“li,ul,img,div”).each(function() {
$(this).css(‘zIndex’, zIndexNumber);
zIndexNumber -= 10;
});
Tried the jQuery version and worked. Thanks :D
Thank you, tried every css trick I could think of, then BAM — jquery’d IE right in the DOM.
Awesome saved my day :)
thanks you saved my hours, I think its better to declare IE6 as a virus and allow anti-virus upgrade it or remove it.
Hi all. There is no need for a javascript fix for this problem. There’s a very simple solution for fixing the IE7 z-index render issue with CSS. Take the following overly-simplified dropdown setup.
<header><dropdownmenu>
</dropdownmenu>
</header>
<content>yadda yadda
</content>The issue being that the menu inside
<header>is ending up under the block of<content>.The glitch comes from the relative and/or absolute positioning of the drop down menu items, and anything else that is positioned with these. IE7 interprets these as being out of the flow of the DOM, and ignores the z-index of items following.
The way to fix it is so simple it borders on ridiculous. Apply a position:relative to the
<header>block, and set your z-index here, not on the menu. Then set a position:relative on the<content>and IE7 will understand the relationship order between these two blocks, and therefore is able to understand and render the z-index properly. Hope this helps people that wander in here in the future!Hey Mark,
you know what, it’s 02:32 am here now and thanks to your tipp I can now go to bed.
unbelievable.
Excellent! Thanks for posting this solution ;-)
Mark,
You are correct, javascript is not required to fix this problem in IE7. In fact it is a performance hit to use JS, because the Javascript engine in IE7 is really slow.
All you have to do is set your CSS relative postioning and decremental z-index values on parent nodes and their children for IE7.
Don’t use javascript! Correct your css for IE7.
There’s another one: using a filter for gradient causes additional z-index bugs in ie8/9.
So for example, place a gradient navbar with fixed position at top of page. If you place a dropdown in this navbar, the display of the dropdown will be cut off, as if you have z-index issues. Remove the filter for IE gradient and you are ok.