Enabling Form Controls using Control arrays

Enabling Form Controls using Control Arrays

A common requirement in many applications is the ability to disable all the controls on a form while some process takes place, such as a saving routine, before restoring all the controls to their original state. On the surface this seems a simple case of setting all the control's enabled property to false and setting them to true afterwards. However, a few spanner's waiting to fall in the works exist...
For a start, not all the controls may initially be enabled, plus some controls do not have an enabled property at all, then other controls may need to be enabled such as an Exit command button to allow a user to abort the form if necessary.
Therefore, the initial state of all the controls needs to be stored, disabled and subsequently reset to their initial state.
A convenient way to achieve this is to step through the forms object collection and store the control type and enabled state in a user defined type array. This subroutine has the ability to disable and enable controls on a form:

'declare user defined variable type for form object data
Private Type udvFormControl
    ' Control variable to hold form control
    objFrmCtrl As Control
    ' Boolean variable to hold control's enabled status
    blnEnabled As Boolean
End Type

'declare modular level array as User Defined Variable
Private arrFrmCtrl() As udvFormControl

Private Sub EnableControls(blnStatus As Boolean)
    Dim intCollectionCount As Integer
    Dim objControl As Control
    Dim strName As String

    If Not blnStatus Then
    'store initial settings & disable form controls    
        For Each objControl In Me
            'avoid controls that don't have an enabled property or
            'the EXIT facility
            If TypeOf objControl Is Line Or _
              TypeOf objControl Is Label Or _
              TypeOf objControl Is Frame Or _
              objControl.Name = "cmdExit" Then
                'ignore
            Else
                intCollectionCount = intCollectionCount + 1
            End If
        Next objControl
        
        ReDim arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount) As udvFormControl
        
        intCollectionCount = 0
        
        For Each objControl In Me
            'avoid controls that don't have an enabled property or
            'the EXIT facility
            If TypeOf objControl Is Line Or _
              TypeOf objControl Is Label Or _
              TypeOf objControl Is Frame Or _
              objControl.Name = "cmdExit" Then
                'ignore
            Else
                strName = objControl.Name
                Set arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount).objFrmCtrl = objControl
                If objControl.Enabled Then
                    arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount).blnEnabled = True
                Else
                    arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount).blnEnabled = False
                End If
                intCollectionCount = intCollectionCount + 1
                objControl.Enabled = False
            End If
        Next objControl
        
    Else
        'enable form controls by reinstating initial settings
        For intCollectionCount = 0 To UBound(arrFrmCtrl) - 1
            Set objControl = arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount).objFrmCtrl
            objControl.Enabled = arrFrmCtrl(intCollectionCount).blnEnabled
            Set objControl = Nothing
        Next intCollectionCount
        
    End If
    
End Sub

The sub works as follows.... pass the blnStatus argument as True to disable all the required controls. First a user defined datatype is declared to hold the form controls identity and enabled status. Then all the controls on the form are counted excluding controls without enabled properties and the Exit control. This done, an array is dimensioned to the number of applicable controls and is populated by iterating through the forms control collection. At the same time all these controls are set to enabled = False.

To reverse the process, pass the blnStatus argument as False to reset all the controls to their original state.

A couple of points to consider, define and declare the user defined datatype in the form or modular declarations and secondly code the calling routine to disable the controls first before re-enabling them, this will not cause an error, just serves little point! The only other point to be aware of is that other controls may exist that do not have an enable status other than the ones listed above, which can be identified by stepping through the subroutine in the event of an undefined object property error, which simply means the control hasn't an enabled property.