<p>I thought they could be, but as I'm not putting my money where my mouth was (so to speak) setting the readonly attribute doesn't actually seem to do anything.</p>

<p>I'd rather not use Disabled, since I want the checked check boxes to be submitted with the rest of the form, I just don't want the client to be able to change them under certain circumstances.</p>

```
READONLY
```
doesn't work on checkboxes as it prevents you from editing a field's
value
, but with a checkbox you're actually editing the field's
state
(on || off)
From
faqs.org
:
It's important to understand that READONLY merely prevents the user from changing the value of the field, not from interacting with the field. In checkboxes, for example, you can check them on or off (thus setting the CHECKED state) but you don't change the value of the field.
If you don't want to use
```
disabled
```
but still want to submit the value, how about submitting the value as a hidden field and just printing its contents to the user when they don't meet the edit criteria? e.g.
```
```
// user allowed change
if($user_allowed_edit)
{
    echo '<input type="checkbox" name="my_check"> Check value';
}
else
{
    // Not allowed change - submit value..
    echo '<input type="hidden" name="my_check" value="1" />';
    // .. and show user the value being submitted
    echo '<input type="checkbox" disabled readonly> Check value';
}
```
```