AllowEdits Property

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

expression   Required. An expression that returns one of the objects in the Applies To list.

Setting

The AllowEdits property uses the following settings.

You can set the AllowEdits property by using the form's property sheet, a macro, or Visual Basic.

Remarks

You can 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 Data Mode argument of the OpenForm action is set, Microsoft Access will override a number of form property settings. If the Data Mode argument of the OpenForm action is set to Edit, Microsoft 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 Data Mode 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