Tri-State Checkboxes

Checkboxes are used to record Boolean, or yes/no values. You will have seen them all over e-Quip and many other Windows applications that you use.

Most often these are 2-state values, i.e. yes or no. In the example below, the battery was checked but not reconditioned or replaced:

This is adequate for editing single records but has limitations when using Bulk Update to edit a batch of records. It is simple to set a value to Yes (just tick the checkbox), but how can you set a value to No? A 2-state checkbox cannot be used for this, as we need a way to indicate:

1. Set this to Yes
2. Set this to No
3. Leave this as it is

This is why we now use tri-state checkboxes for the equipment and job screens. The 3 states are illustrated below:

This means:

1. The battery was not checked
2. The battery was reconditioned
3. No information is available as to whether or not the battery was replaced

Within a Bulk Update operation this is interpreted as:

For each selected record:

1. Set Battery Checked to No
2. Set Battery Reconditioned to Yes
3. Leave the Battery Replaced field as it is

Initially we have added these just to the equipment and job property pages but we will add them to other screens which support Bulk Update as time permits.

As always, any feedback would be much appreciated.