"label for" checkboxes and radio buttons

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© July 2004 Tony Lawrence
Sat Jul 17 17:10:54 2004

DevNiall made me aware of an HTML form feature I didn't know about. These two checkboxes are very similar:

Just a check box

Another checkbox

But there is a difference: on the bottom one, you can click on either the text or the checkbox itself. On the top one, you have to click on the box.

The code difference is just the addition of an id and a "label for" tag:

<input type="checkbox" name="acbox" value="Just a check box">Just a check box

<input type="checkbox" id="idbox" name="cboxwithlabel" value="Another check box"><label for="idbox">Another checkbox</label>

DevNiall explained:

Now instead of a 16x16 capture (just the checkbox) you have the
checkbox *and* the label itself available for capture, just like any
normal UI.

By "capture" I mean that the label is capable of capturing, responding
to, and bubbling events like onclick etc. The UI term for actually
clicking on the thing is "acquisition", as in "the target is
easier to acquire because you can click on the label or the checkbox".
 

Thanks, Niall!

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