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..