Z-index stacking control in Tailwind - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Z-index stacking control

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple webpage with overlapping colored boxes. You want to control which box appears on top using z-index values.

🎯 Goal: Create a small HTML structure with three overlapping boxes using Tailwind CSS. Assign z-index values to control their stacking order so that the red box is on top, the green box is in the middle, and the blue box is at the bottom.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create three div elements with background colors red, green, and blue respectively.

Use Tailwind CSS classes to position the boxes so they overlap.

Add z-index classes to control the stacking order: red on top, green in the middle, blue at the bottom.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web designers often need to control which elements appear on top when they overlap, such as menus, modals, or layered images.

💼 Career

Understanding z-index stacking is essential for front-end developers and UI designers to create visually correct and user-friendly interfaces.

1

Create three colored boxes

Create three div elements with Tailwind CSS classes for background colors: bg-red-500, bg-green-500, and bg-blue-500. Each box should have fixed width and height of w-24 h-24.

Tailwind

Need a hint?

Use Tailwind classes bg-red-500, bg-green-500, and bg-blue-500 for colors and w-24 h-24 for size.

2

Position boxes to overlap

Add Tailwind CSS classes relative to each div and use top-0 left-0 for the first box, top-6 left-6 for the second, and top-12 left-12 for the third to position them so they overlap diagonally.

Tailwind

Need a hint?

Use relative positioning and offset classes like top-6 and left-6 to overlap boxes diagonally.

3

Add z-index classes to control stacking

Add Tailwind CSS z-index classes z-30 to the red box, z-20 to the green box, and z-10 to the blue box to set their stacking order with red on top.

Tailwind

Need a hint?

Use Tailwind z-index classes like z-30, z-20, and z-10 to control which box appears on top.

4

Wrap boxes in a container with relative positioning

Wrap the three boxes inside a div container with Tailwind class relative and fixed width w-48 and height h-48 to keep the boxes positioned correctly.

Tailwind

Need a hint?

Wrap the boxes in a container div with relative positioning and fixed size to keep layout stable.