A disabled, or ~insensitive~, widget does not respond to input and has a different visual appearance in order to indicate such state. To enable or disable a widget: set_sensitive($state); ?>]]> where %$state% is %TRUE% or %FALSE%. If the widget is enabled, but its parent is not, then it is considered disabled as well. To test a widget's state: sensitive(); $state = $button->is_sensitive(); ?>]]> The first method tests just the widget itself, while the second one takes into account its parent's state as well.