For future questions, I highly recommend posting the generated HTML client code as well since that is what the CSS is acting upon. It will help people understand the problem faster and find a solution faster.
Without seeing your full source or client HTML, this is all speculation; however, I believe your issue is related to the stack(ing) order.
Basically, what I imagine your setup to be (especially judging by your response to Rens Tillmann's answer) is the following:
HTML:
<div id="header">
...Fixed content showing above modal popup...
</div>
<div id="content">
...Modal background element + Modal popup content...
</div>
In this case, if #header
has a z-index
greater than that of #content
's z-index
(assuming #content
has proper stacking context), then the fixed header will always show up above the modal content because the modal content is in a subcontext of #content
's stacking context. This means that no matter what z-index
you give the modal content, it will always be below #header
.
Here is a JSFiddle to illustrate the issue.
So, what can we do? There are four solutions to get the modal content above #header
that I can think of at the moment.
Solution 4 is the easiest potential solution if your website design allows it.
Solution 1:
Make #content
have a higher stacking order than #header
. This is not the answer, because I am assuming we need #header
to float above #content
.
Doing it this way will have the normal content show up above the header content.
JSFiddle to illustrate why this won't work.
Solution 2:
Put #header
into the same stacking context as the modal. This can work; however, depending upon how your webpage is laid out in HTML and CSS, this may not be possible.
To put #header
into the same stacking context as the modal, the easiest way would be to move it to be a sibling
element of the modal.
JSFiddle to illustrate this solution.
Another potential drawback of this solution is that it may be semantically confusing to have your header inside your content.
Solution 3:
Put the modal background + content into the same stacking context of the #header
element. Depending upon how your ASP.Net code is set up, this may not be possible. I don't fully grasp how AjaxControlToolkit works; so I don't know if this is possible or not.
The easiest way to do this would be to move the ModalPopup
and Panel
markups to be siblings
of the #header
element.
HTML:
<ajaxToolkit:ModalPopupExtender ID="mpeImageViewer" runat="server" Drag="false" PopupControlID="pnlImageViewer" Y="90"
TargetControlID="imgEmpty" BackgroundCssClass="modalBackground" CancelControlID="imgClose" DropShadow="true">
</ajaxToolkit:ModalPopupExtender>
<asp:Panel ID="pnlImageViewer" runat="server" Style="display: none;" Width="975px" Height="550px" CssClass="modalPopup"></asp:Panel>
<div id="header">
...fixed header content...
</div>
<div id="content">
...regular content...
</div>
If you do this, their z-index
values will be in the same context and can affect each other.
Here is a JSFiddle to illustrate this in action.
Note 1:
In Solution 3, you can also put the modal in a stacking context higher than #header
's stacking context and it will still work.
For example, this would also work (assuming the modal has a higher z-index
than the #wrapper
element):
<ajaxToolkit:ModalPopupExtender ID="mpeImageViewer" runat="server" Drag="false" PopupControlID="pnlImageViewer" Y="90"
TargetControlID="imgEmpty" BackgroundCssClass="modalBackground" CancelControlID="imgClose" DropShadow="true">
</ajaxToolkit:ModalPopupExtender>
<asp:Panel ID="pnlImageViewer" runat="server" Style="display: none;" Width="975px" Height="550px" CssClass="modalPopup"></asp:Panel>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
...fixed header content...
</div>
<div id="content">
...regular content...
</div>
</div>
Note 2:
To be in the same stacking context, you do not have to be sibling elements. You should have sibling stacking contexts though.
For example:
<div class="has-stacking-context" style="z-index: 2;">
(stacking context sibling 1)
...content will show in middle...
</div>
<div class="no-stacking-context">
<div class="no-stacking-context">
<div class="has-stacking-context" style="z-index: 3;">
(stacking context sibling 2)
...content will show above everything...
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="has-stacking-context" style="z-index: 1;">
(stacking context sibling 3)
<div class="no-stacking-context">
<div class="has-stacking-context" style="z-index: 100000;">
(subcontext of sibling 3's stacking context)
...content will show below everything...
</div>
</div>
</div>
Moving elements physically (as I've done in Solution 2 and 3) just side-steps any need to remove various stacking contexts to get two stacking contexts to be siblings. Sometimes it is not possible to remove the stacking context of some elements.
Solution 4 (can it be this simple?):
This is basically another way of doing Solution 3. Instead of physically moving the modal elements to match up the stacking contexts, we eliminate stacking contexts blocking the #header
and modal element stacking contexts from being siblings.
Depending upon how your CSS is set up, this may or may not work.
For example, it may be possible to just remove the #content
element's stacking context so that they become stacking context siblings.
Here is a JSFiddle to illustrate the easiest potential solution.
Notice that I removed the z-index
property (and position
property) of the #content
element. It now has no stacking context. You can do this to all ancestor elements of the modal elements to see if it works. Keep in mind though that some of those ancestors may actually need their stacking contexts...
Final Solution (after chatting with you):
So, after looking at your code. I basically solved the issue using Solution 4. Your structure looks like the following:
<div class="HeaderContainer">
</div>
<div id="contentAreaMasterPage">
<div id="ctl00_MainContentPlaceHolder_ImageThumbnailList_ImageViewer_mpeImageViewer_foregroundElement" style="position: fixed; z-index: 100001; left: 38.5px; top: 10px;">...</div>
<div id="ctl00_MainContentPlaceHolder_ImageThumbnailList_ImageViewer_mpeImageViewer_backgroundElement" class="modalBackground" style="position: fixed; left: 0px; top: 0px; z-index: 10000; width: 1003px; height: 601px;"></div>
</div>
Because .HeaderContainer
has a z-index
of 10
and #contentAreaMasterPage
has a z-index
of 9
, everything inside #contentAreaMasterPage
will always show up below .HeaderContainer1
. So even though the two modal elements have z-index
values more than 100 times that of .HeaderContainer
's z-index
of 10
, they will always show up below it because they're inside #contentAreaMasterPage
's z-index
of 9
.
Thus we want to get rid of #contentAreaMasterPage
's z-index
so that it no longer has a stacking context to get in-between .HeaderContainer
's and the modal elements' z-index
values. It's safe to remove the z-index
in this case because .HeaderContainer
will show up above #contentAreaMasterPage
anyway without #contentAreaMasterPage
needing a lower z-index
.
The related solution CSS code is thus simply:
#contentAreaMasterPage {
z-index: auto !important;
}
Which goes inside your specific page since you cannot modify the master template nor the master CSS file.