Stacking and Transparency with Inline Floating Frames

In Internet Explorer 5 and earlier, iframes could not play in the world of z-index-positioned elements. While you could position an iframe on a page, you could not lay content from the host document over the iframe using a greater z-index value. In Internet Explorer 5.5 and later, this feature is supported. Internet Explorer 5.5 and later also support transparent frames. By declaring the background of the frame's document to be transparent and having the container declare that it allows transparency, you can enable the background of the containing document to show through.

By specifying the z-order of floating frames, you can stack one frame on top of another.

Drag these iframes around to observe z-index positioning and transparency working together. Z-Index 1: Click and drag here. Z-Index 2: Click and drag here. Z-Index 3: Click and drag here.

[To view the source code, right-click anywhere in the window.]