jQuery: How can I create a simple overlay?

An overlay is, simply put, a div that stays fixed on the screen (no matter if you scroll) and has some sort of opacity.

This will be your CSS for cross browser opacity of 0.5:

#overlay {
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    background-color: #000;
    filter:alpha(opacity=50);
    -moz-opacity:0.5;
    -khtml-opacity: 0.5;
    opacity: 0.5;
    z-index: 10000;
}

This will be your jQuery code (no UI needed). You're just going to create a new element with the ID #overlay. Creating and destroying the DIV should be all you need.

var overlay = jQuery('<div id="overlay"> </div>');
overlay.appendTo(document.body)

For performance reasons you might wanna have the DIV hidden and setting the display to block and none as you need it or not.

Hope it helps!

Edit: As @Vitaly so well put it, be sure to check your DocType. Read more on the comments on his findings..

Here is a simple javascript only solution

function displayOverlay(text) {
    $("<table id='overlay'><tbody><tr><td>" + text + "</td></tr></tbody></table>").css({
        "position": "fixed",
        "top": 0,
        "left": 0,
        "width": "100%",
        "height": "100%",
        "background-color": "rgba(0,0,0,.5)",
        "z-index": 10000,
        "vertical-align": "middle",
        "text-align": "center",
        "color": "#fff",
        "font-size": "30px",
        "font-weight": "bold",
        "cursor": "wait"
    }).appendTo("body");
}

function removeOverlay() {
    $("#overlay").remove();
}

Demo:

http://jsfiddle.net/UziTech/9g0pko97/

Gist:

https://gist.github.com/UziTech/7edcaef02afa9734e8f2