The standard Mac OS behavior is to indicate partial selection with a
horizontal line instead of a check mark. I think this is more
successful than the "greyed out" check mark that a couple of people
mentioned, since the greying may make the control look unclickable
(unless that's what you want). Clicking on a partial checkbox acts
like "select all." I think there's a similar Windows standard, but I
can't remember if it's a horizontal line or something else (I seem to
remember a dot or square? not sure...).
The horizontal line might be problematic if your tree control uses
pluses (+) and minuses (-) for expanding/collapsing the tree because
you'd have one visual cue for two distinct controls, which could
cause confusion. Mac OS uses right-facing and down-facing triangles
for expand/collapse, which avoids this issue.
-Adam
On May 13, 2008, at 8:30 AM, David Mathew wrote:
Are there any good conventions for displaying a "partially selected
checkbox"? I have a tree of checkboxes and I'm trying to think of the
clearest way to show the user an indication that a parent checkbox
is in one
of the following three states:
1. All of its items (child checkboxes) are selected/checked
2. Some but not all of its items are selected ("partially
selected", ie some
child checkboxes are checked and some are not)
3. None of its items are selected (no child checkboxes are checked)
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