Create a Beautiful Looking Custom Dialog Box With jQuery and CSS3

Introduction

I've been acting on an internet application that needs intensive use of mythical being and Javascript. it's a flowery navigation menu (tab menu + volcanic rock lamp submenu), tab interface in sidebar, mythical being based mostly calendar and schedule module, mythical being based mostly registration and forgotten arcanum...... it's tons of scripts in it and it's pretty sensible after they all work along.

This custom window is one in every of the scripts therein web site and that i suppose it'll be quite helpful for all of you still. the rationale I actually have this practice window is as a result of the inconsistencies across completely different browsers. If you check out mac's firefox and windows' firefox, the window is totally different!

One issue regarding this window, it uses CSS3 drop shawdow and a totally CSS3 skined button. So, latest version of chrome, firefox and campaign can haven't any issues with it, except for IE6 and seven, the script can work however the show of the window can look plain, no rounded border, drop shadow and gradient (i suppose ie8 can work).

Demo Download

This is how it looks like:

This is how it looks like in IE:

1. HTML

This is the html, basically #dialog-overlay is the dark background and #dialog-box is the message box. It's pretty straight forward and I reckon you can use javascript to append this into BODY as well.

 id="dialog-overlay">


 id="dialog-box">

    

 class="dialog-content">

        

 id="dialog-message">

         href="#" class="button">Close
    

2. CSS

This is the first time I use CSS3. CSS3 is a hot topic lately because safari, chrome, firefox and IE8 start supporting it. Some of the websites like twitter has been using CSS3 as well. The following is the CSS code and I have added comments in each of the section.

#dialog-overlay {

    /* set it to fill the whil screen */
    width:100%; 
    height:100%;
    
    /* transparency for different browsers */
    filter:alpha(opacity=50); 
    -moz-opacity:0.5; 
    -khtml-opacity: 0.5; 
    opacity: 0.5; 
    background:#000; 

    /* make sure it appear behind the dialog box but above everything else */
    position:absolute; 
    top:0; left:0; 
    z-index:3000; 

    /* hide it by default */
    display:none;
}


#dialog-box {
    
    /* css3 drop shadow */
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
    -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
    
    /* css3 border radius */
    -moz-border-radius: 5px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
    
    background:#eee;
    /* styling of the dialog box, i have a fixed dimension for this demo */ 
    width:328px; 
    
    /* make sure it has the highest z-index */
    position:absolute; 
    z-index:5000; 

    /* hide it by default */
    display:none;
}

#dialog-box .dialog-content {
    /* style the content */
    text-align:left; 
    padding:10px; 
    margin:13px;
    color:#666; 
    font-family:arial;
    font-size:11px; 
}

a.button {
    /* styles for button */
    margin:10px auto 0 auto;
    text-align:center;
    display: block;
    width:50px;
    padding: 5px 10px 6px;
    color: #fff;
    text-decoration: none;
    font-weight: bold;
    line-height: 1;
    
    /* button color */
    background-color: #e33100;
    
    /* css3 implementation :) */
    /* rounded corner */
    -moz-border-radius: 5px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
    
    /* drop shadow */
    -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
    
    /* text shaow */
    text-shadow: 0 -1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.25);
    border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.25);
    position: relative;
    cursor: pointer;
    
}

a.button:hover {
    background-color: #c33100;    
}

/* extra styling */
#dialog-box .dialog-content p {
    font-weight:700; margin:0;
}

#dialog-box .dialog-content ul {
    margin:10px 0 10px 20px; 
    padding:0; 
    height:50px;
}

3. Javascript

Alright, I reference part of the javascript from jQuery modal window tutorial. I write a popup function for this dialog box so that it can be called easily.

Textpop-Up

$(document).ready(function () {

    // if user clicked on button, the overlay layer or the dialogbox, close the dialog    
    $('a.btn-ok, #dialog-overlay, #dialog-box').click(function () {        
        $('#dialog-overlay, #dialog-box').hide();        
        return false;
    });
    
    // if user resize the window, call the same function again
    // to make sure the overlay fills the screen and dialogbox aligned to center    
    $(window).resize(function () {
        
        //only do it if the dialog box is not hidden
        if (!$('#dialog-box').is(':hidden')) popup();        
    });    
    
    
});

//Popup dialog
function popup(message) {
        
    // get the screen height and width  
    var maskHeight = $(document).height();  
    var maskWidth = $(window).width();
    
    // calculate the values for center alignment
    var dialogTop =  (maskHeight/3) - ($('#dialog-box').height());  
    var dialogLeft = (maskWidth/2) - ($('#dialog-box').width()/2); 
    
    // assign values to the overlay and dialog box
    $('#dialog-overlay').css({height:maskHeight, width:maskWidth}).show();
    $('#dialog-box').css({top:dialogTop, left:dialogLeft}).show();
    
    // display the message
    $('#dialog-message').html(message);
            
}

Conclusion

That's it, hope you enjoyed reading this. Drop us a comment if you have any questions.