Selecting a Check Box for Dummies

I still recall the annoyance one of the first times I was going on the Internet having to enter some data, or more specifically having to select a check box. I was clicking on the label text next to it, but nothing happened. Having been raised on a Fat Mac (512 KB internal memory!) I was used to select it ‘anywhere’; on the check box itself or on the label belonging to it.

The same emotion came to me working with Navision Financials (2.01) for the very first time. Using a PC was some kind of shock by itself. And then, on top of this, the immensity of the subject of this post: selecting a check box in Navision Financials. Having to move the mouse pointer into that perfectly square shaped control and click. Almost nothing worse for a RSI prone person.

Meanwhile I have become an almost full-time keyboard user, which indeed means entering data on a window like the Location Card without almost any mouse movements. Striking the keys with passion, I know how to navigate from one field to the other, between tabs and down to any menu item. Nothing special, but saving me the annoyance of trying to catch the check box. One major exception to the rule – deduced just now – seems to be request forms. On these I tend to reach for the mouse and hit the bulls eye.

Apparently my annoyance did never build up high enough to make me enter a suggestion on msconnect for improvement. And now, by some sort of coincidence, I only recently found out there is no need to anyway. Of course classic will disappear not long from now and RTC will rise to the zenith, having been holding the solution to my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious emotional burden.

Sitting next to Andy Zippel, my Add Freeze Pane guru [H], last week it was only then that the scales were removed from my eyes. Selecting a Check Box for Dummies! My prayers were answered; and long before I even realized. I saw a check mark appearing although Andy did not click his mouse pointer on the box itself. At first I could not believe my eyes. And it seems I am even worse than doubting Thomas still no fully convinced RTC has really come to my rescue defying every check box by clicking anywhere on the label.