Windows XP in a Nutshell

Name

Labels

Synopsis

Labels are basically noninteractive pieces of text placed on dialogs used to describe a control (such as the slides shown in Figure 3-14) that doesn’t have a place for a description. Clicking labels usually has no effect.

Figure 3-14. Labels are noninteractive captions for other controls (like these sliders) that don’t have captions of their own

The important thing to note about labels is that they often contain a single underlined letter. Holding Alt and pressing the key for that letter will send the focus to the next control. This is useful because the input field in this example doesn’t have a shortcut key of its own.

Notes

Some labels allow you to select and copy text and are distinguished because the mouse pointer changes to an “I-beam” when over the label. Strictly speaking, these are just standard input fields (without borders) that have been made to look like labels. Examples of this type of field can be seen by right-clicking on a file and selecting properties.