Best Practice of Chtml's Methods

i have confused about two kinds of CHtml’s Methods, static and active. can anyone provide a simple explanation about those usage? when i should use the static one and when i should use the active one? or maybe there is some page for my reference.

what do you mean by static? If you are comparing for example CHtml::activeCheckBox() to CHtml::checkBox() one of the major differences is that the method that starts with active requires a $model to be rendered and the other does not.

i mean, ‘static’ is opposite of active. but now, i know its not correct term. thank you bettor for your reply. now i understand better :)