Not sure exactly what you are doing with the code because you did not post it, but you can create a window with checkboxes: string $window = `window -width 50`; columnLayout -adjustableColumn true; checkBox; checkBox -v true; showWindow $window; window -edit -widthHeight 40 60 $window; and use the "-v true" parameter to default one as true. Regarding "resetting", if you are resetting within your own code, you could just re-draw the window if necessary. That is the best answer I know of without actually seeing the code.