Checkbox
Implementation: JCheckBox
, JBCheckBox

Use checkboxes for yes/no choices or for selecting several items in a group:

If only one option in a group can be selected, use radio button:
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If the behavior in the "off" state is unclear from the checkbox label, use two radio buttons instead and label them accordingly:
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A label accompanies each checkbox and is placed on the right side.
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If a label is long, split it into two lines. Use HTML formatting for that. Avoid labels that take more than two lines. See recommendations on writing concise labels below.
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If a checkbox appears in a table, place the label into the column header and do not repeat it on every row:

Checkboxes are rendered in tables with BooleanTableCellRenderer
and edited with DefaultCellEditor(JCheckBox)
implementation. For any column that should be rendered as a checkbox, set both a renderer and editor for consistency. The type of data in the correspondent column of the Table
model should either be Boolean
or String
containing true
or false
.
TableColumn column = table.getColumnModel().getColumn(COLUMN_INDEX);
column.setCellEditor(JBTable.createBooleanEditor());
column.setCellRenderer(new BooleanTableCellRender());
In a group of options, use the parent checkbox to show the status of its children. The state of the parent checkbox can be checked, indeterminate or unchecked. When a user clicks an indeterminate checkbox for the first time, the whole group becomes checked. The second click unchecks the whole group.

The three-state checkbox is represented by the ThreeStateCheckBox
class which represents its state with the ThreeStateCheckBox.State
enum containing SELECTED, NOT_SELECTED, DONT_CARE
states.
An indeterminate checkbox can also show the download status. In the example below, a remote repository with Repositories "tools-base" and "contrib" are being loaded. When loading is finished, the indeterminate checkbox will be replaced with the checked checkbox if there are commits, or an unchecked checkbox if there are no commits.

In a table, the three-state checkbox is represented by ThreeStateCheckBoxRenderer
that provides both TableCellRenderer
and TableEditor
. It accepts Boolean
type in the column being supplied by the TableModel
and becomes DONT_CARE
when the value in the cell is null. Otherwise, it becomes SELECTED
for Boolean.TRUE
, and NOT_SELECTED
for Boolean.FALSE
.
Use sentence-style capitalization:
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Do not use ending punctuation:
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Use the imperative form of verbs:
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Do not use negation in labels as it complicates understanding:
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note
Exception: Do not show again checkbox.
Make labels short and intelligible. See Writing short and clear.
Follow the guidelines for checkboxes and radio buttons layout.
Thanks for your feedback!