How to make a transparent background without background image?

Question

I would like a div to have a transparent background.
I tried to do this using background-color and opacity, but the problem is that the border and the text inside become also transparent. Example here.

Is this possible to achieve this without using transparent PNG background image ?

Adherent

I would answer with background-color: transparent but I don't think you're looking for that. What exactly do you mean by a transparent background? Edit: upvoted Gaby's answer in case you were looking for a completely transparent background. – Berkshire

This is not want I'm looking for. See my comment to Gaby's answer below. – Adherent

related #806500 – Geanticline

related https://mcmap.net/q/41306/-set-opacity-of-background-image-without-affecting-child-elements/759452 – Geanticline

Answer 1

If you just want the color of the background to be transparent and not the child content, use

background-color: rgba(0,0,0,.5); // Sets to 50% transparent

See this page for more details - it's a css3 spec so won't show up in every browser:

http://www.css3.info/introduction-opacity-rgba/

Rafael

Note that rgba is not compatible with IE8 but is compatible with IE10+ (IE9 maybe too), Firefox 3+, Safari 3+, Chrome. You can use css3pie polyfill library (see stackoverflow.com/tags/css3pie/hot) to make this feature work on IE8 & below. – Geanticline

Answer 2

Yes.

Set background-color: transparent;

and do not use opacity, as that is what makes semi-transparent the whole div..

updated your example at http://jsfiddle.net/eU7By/1/

UPDATE after comments

you can use rgba for the background-color as @DHuntrods mentions. IE needs some tweaking of'course.. http://leaverou.me/2009/02/bulletproof-cross-browser-rgba-backgrounds/

Sinkhole

I meant the that background-color should be semi transparent. In my example, the black background should be semi-transparent (according to opacity). – Adherent

Answer 3

The most cross-browser solution is to use the opacity property on an additional "absolutely positioned" child element (in a relatively or absolutely positioned parent): it only there to contain the colored transparent background.

Then you can use the opacity property to make this element transparent. Since this element has no children, the opacity will not affect any other element.

Opacity is an IE5+ property, just use (see http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/cross-browser-opacity/):

-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=50)";    /* IE 8 */
filter: alpha(opacity=50);  /* IE 5-7 */
-moz-opacity: 0.5;          /* Netscape */
-khtml-opacity: 0.5;        /* Safari 1.x */
opacity: 0.5;               /* Good browsers */

see the jsFiddle example http://jsfiddle.net/DUjzX/1/

The whole code looks like:

The HTML:

 <div class="my-cool-wrapper">
      <div class="text-and-images-on-top">
           <p>Here some content (text AND images) "on top of the transparent background"</p>
           <img src="http://i.imgur.com/LnnghmF.gif">
      </div>
      <div class="transparent-background">
      </div>
 </div>

The CSS:

 .my-cool-wrapper {
      position: relative;
 }
 .my-cool-wrapper .text-and-images-on-top {
      padding: 10px 15px 19px 15px;
      z-index: 1;
      position: relative; /* needed to enable the z-index */
 }
 .my-cool-wrapper .transparent-background {
      position: absolute;
      top: 0;    
      width: 100%;
      height: 100%;
      -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=10)";       /* IE 8 */
      filter: alpha(opacity=10);  /* IE 5-7 */
      -moz-opacity: 0.1;          /* Netscape */
      -khtml-opacity: 0.1;        /* Safari 1.x */
      opacity: 0.1;               /* Good browsers */
      background-color: blue;
 }

read more: Set opacity of background image without affecting child elements

Screenshots proofs

ps: I did not add the screenshots for Chrome, Firefox & Safari since these are much "better" browsers... trust me, it works for them too.

Geanticline

Answer 4

I had to use a 30x30 transparent gif as a background.

background:url('absolute path here');

Swum

Answer 5

A very simple CSS method to have a clear transparent background in html is this code.

background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6)!important;

Marauding