Of HIG, Apple, and User-Centric Design

[Robert Brenstein]

>  > A checkbox I can't uncheck is a surprise. I never (or at least almost
>>  never) encounter such beasts. Put one into your program at the very
>>  high risk that I will be sufficiently uncomfortable that I will go
>>  away. And, what is perhaps more sinister and important, I will probably
>>  never tell you why I went away.
>
>Does this mean that any time you've encountered a preference group in an
>application or the system that contains disabled checkboxes, you stop using
>the program/system immediately and trash it?
>
>I wonder how you get along without QuickTime (System
>Preferences/QuickTime/Connection tab), non US keyboard layouts (System
>Preferences/International/Input Menu Tab), the Mouse control panel (with a
>trackpad), or a modem (System Preferences/Network/Modem tab)?
>

But there is a difference whether the checkbox is enabled or not. A 
disabled checkbox is inactive, so it is perfectly normal that it 
can't be unchecked. However, the same is not true if that checkbox is 
enabled. Once it is enabled, one should be able to toggle its state.

Robert