>If it's a bound field, then by default it will be read-only in the regular view and then if you add a edit command link it will be active when you're editing the row. If you want the checkbox to be active in the regular view you'd need to convert it to a template field and then change the checkbox enabled property in the itemtemplate. You then need to have a button to check through all the rows in the gridview to persist the checkbox values that have been changed.
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Sounds a bit complicated for a newbie like me. To make matters worse, I'm unable to turn this field into template field in the design view (get Unspecified error if I try to do this, so I need to do so in the code).