css - make div be above page content

Question

I have this drop down menu, that when it's hovered some of the content is going behind another div. It looks like this:

The css for the menu is like this:

.nav-m {
        height: 50px;
        width: 60px;
        display: block;
        position: absolute;
        z-index: 9999;
        overflow-y: hidden;
        text-align: center;
        position: absolute;
    }

    .nav-m:hover {
        width: 140px;
        height: 210px;
    }

    .nav-m a {
        display: none;
        text-indent: -9999px;
        position: relative;
        height: 20px;
        padding: 13px 0;
        color: #fff !important;
    }

    nav a:first-child:hover {
        text-indent: -9999px;
    }

    .nav-m:hover>a {
        display: block;
    }

    .nav-m:hover>a:first-child:after {
        color: #6daeaf;
        background: #505664;
    }

    .nav-m a:first-child {
        display: block;
        text-align: center;
        margin-bottom: 16px;
        cursor: default;
    }

    .nav-m a:after {
        position: absolute;
        top: 0;
        padding: 12px 0;
        width: 60px;
        color: #fff;
        font-family: 'icons';
        font-size: 24px;
        display: block;
        text-indent: 0;
        background: #6daeaf;
    }

    nav a:hover {
        text-indent: 0px;
        text-align: left;
        margin-left: 70px;
    }

    .nav-m a:hover:after {
        color: #999;
        background: #fff;
        text-align: center;
        margin-left: -70px;
    }

    .nav-m a:first-child:before {
        position: absolute;
        text-indent: 0;
        top: 55px;
        left: 23px;
        content: "";
        width: 0; 
        height: 0; 
        border-left: 7px solid transparent;
        border-right: 7px solid transparent;
        border-bottom: 7px solid #6daeaf;
    }

    .nav-m a:first-child:hover:before {
        margin-left: -70px;
    }

    .nav-m a:first-child:after {
        left: 0;
        content: "m";
        background: #656d7e;
        -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
        -moz-border-radius: 5px;
        border-radius: 5px;
    }

    .nav-m a:nth-child(2):after {
        content: "p";
        -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 5px;
        -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 5px;
        -moz-border-radius-topleft: 5px;
        -moz-border-radius-topright: 5px;
        border-top-left-radius: 5px;
        border-top-right-radius: 5px;
    }

    .nav-m a:nth-child(3):after {
        content: "s";
    }

    .nav-m a:last-child:after {
        content: "e";
        -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 5px;
        -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 5px;
        -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 5px;
        -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 5px;
        border-bottom-left-radius: 5px;
        border-bottom-right-radius: 5px;
    }

Below the menu div is .container, .row and then a div with class='span12' (I'm using bootstrap)

The HTML looks like this:

<div id="topbg">
 <div class="span9">span9 content here</div>
 <div class="span3 avatar-holder" >


  <nav class="nav-m" onmouseover="">
        <a href="#" title="Menu">Menu</a>
        <a href="#" title="Account">Account</a>
        <a href="#" title="Settings">Settings</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
        <a href="#" title="Email">Email</a>
    </nav>

    </div>
    </div>


</div><!--end row-->  
</div><!--end topbg-->

<div class='container' style='margin-top:20px;'>

<div class='row'>

    <div class='span12' style='margin:0;'>
span 12 content

</div><!--end span12-->
</div><!--end row-->

So, I've tried setting the z-index to -1 on the following divs: .row, .container, .span12 with no luck. I've also tried settings the overflow to visible on every possible div. I can't find the problem here.

Can anyone help me out?

Answer 1

The div is not overlaping the menu. It is the menu items which are not visible.

You have text-indent: -9999px on .nav-m a menu items and you reverted that for first three items thanks to following CSS

.nav-m a:nth-child(3):after {
    content: "s";
}
.nav-m a:nth-child(2):after {
    content: "p";
}
.nav-m a:first-child:after {
    content: "m";
}

Now look at general styles for all your menu items:

.nav-m a:after {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    padding: 12px 0;
    width: 60px;
    color: #FFF;
    font-family: 'icons';
    font-size: 24px;
    display: block;
    text-indent: 0;
    background: #6DAEAF;
}

It misses the content property which is crucial here. Without it the pseudo-element :after won't be rendered at all.

To prove that, I prepared a JSFIDDLE with your code (no modifications). It doesn't contain this overlaping div at all but the problem is still present.

If you want to stay with this approach I'd suggest a minor change which will spare you lots of CSS.
To every menu item anchor add an attribute data-shortcut which will hold the first letter of the menu item

<a href="#" title"Settings" data-shortcut="s">Settings</a>

and so on... Now you can access this attribute in CSS content property

content: attr(data-shortcut);

Thanks to that you don't need to define CSS for every menu item with different first letter.

Answer 2

Z-index only effects elements that have a position set to them. Make sure you have position:relative or position:absolute set to both the dropdown and the div covering it.

Answer 3

Try to give z-index value more than div on which it is overlapping.

Example : If div1 contains z-index 10, then give greater z-index to <nav>which is hiding behind `div1'.