To make life somewhat easier, database columns that will be rendered as checkboxes should be of type tinyint (or number) with values of zero and one (where 1 is checked).
The definition of the html->checkbox function is (note: title is not used):
checkbox($fieldName, $title = null, $htmlAttributes = array(), $return = false)
Whether or not the checkbox is checked is based on the htmlAttributes array. To illustrate what I mean, these $htmlAttribute arrays will result in a checked checkbox:
array('value'=>1)
array('value'=>0)
array('checked'=>1)
array('checked'=>0)
array('checked'=>'checked')
A bit of odd code does make the value of 0 (zero) also check the checkbox, so do not do this
echo $html->checkbox('Model/column', null, array('value'=>$ind));
and expect the checkbox to be unchecked if $ind is zero. It seems this would be the right thing to do to optimize your code, however, it does not work as expected.
So, to create a checkbox you’d write the easiest thing possible:
echo $html->checkbox('Model/column');
and CakePHP will make it checked for you (no extra code required).
