Form.AllowEdits property (Access)

Use the AllowEdits property to specify whether a user can edit saved records when using a form. Read/write Boolean.

Syntax

expression.AllowEdits

expression A variable that represents a Form object.

Remarks

Use the AllowEdits property to prevent changes to existing data displayed by a form. If you want to prevent changes to data in a specific control, use the Enabled or Locked property.

If you want to prevent changes to existing records (make a form read-only), set the AllowAdditions, AllowDeletions, and AllowEdits properties to No. You can also make records read-only by setting the RecordsetType property to Snapshot.

When the AllowEdits property is set to No, the Delete Record and Data Entry menu commands aren't available for existing records. (They may still be available for new records if the AllowAdditions property is set to Yes.)

Changing a field value programmatically causes the current record to be editable, regardless of the AllowEdits property setting. If you want to prevent the user from making changes to a record (AllowEdits is No) that you need to edit programmatically, save the record after any programmatic changes; the AllowEdits property setting will be honored once again after any unsaved changes to the current record are saved.

Note

When the DataMode argument of the OpenForm action is set, Microsoft Access will override a number of form property settings. If the DataMode argument of the OpenForm action is set to Edit, Access will open the form with the following property settings:

  • AllowEdits - Yes
  • AllowDeletions - Yes
  • AllowAdditions - Yes
  • DataEntry - No

To prevent the OpenForm action from overriding any of these existing property settings, omit the DataMode argument setting so that Microsoft Access will use the property settings defined by the form.

Example

The following example examines the ControlType property for all controls on a form. For each label and text box control, the procedure toggles the SpecialEffect property for those controls. When the label controls' SpecialEffect property is set to Shadowed, and the text box controls' SpecialEffect property is set to Normal, and the AllowAdditions, AllowDeletions, and AllowEdits properties are all set to True, the intCanEdit variable is toggled to allow editing of the underlying data.

Sub ToggleControl(frm As Form) 
 Dim ctl As Control 
 Dim intI As Integer, intCanEdit As Integer 
 Const conTransparent = 0 
 Const conWhite = 16777215 
 For Each ctl in frm.Controls 
 With ctl 
 Select Case .ControlType 
 Case acLabel 
 If .SpecialEffect = acEffectShadow Then 
 .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal 
 .BorderStyle = conTransparent 
 intCanEdit = True 
 Else 
 .SpecialEffect = acEffectShadow 
 intCanEdit = False 
 End If 
 Case acTextBox 
 If .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal Then 
 .SpecialEffect = acEffectSunken 
 .BackColor = conWhite 
 Else 
 .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal 
 .BackColor = frm.Detail.BackColor 
 End If 
 End Select 
 End With 
 Next ctl 
 If intCanEdit = IFalse Then 
 With frm 
 .AllowAdditions = False 
 .AllowDeletions = False 
 .AllowEdits = False 
 End With 
 Else 
 With frm 
 .AllowAdditions = True 
 .AllowDeletions = True 
 .AllowEdits = True 
 End With 
 End If 
End Sub

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