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ControlType Property

You can use the ControlType property in Visual Basic to determine the type of a control on a form or report. Read/write Byte.

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

Setting

The ControlType property setting is an intrinsic constant that specifies the control type.

Constant	Control
acBoundObjectFrame	Bound object frame
acCheckBox	Check box
acComboBox	Combo box
acCommandButton	Command button
acCustomControl	ActiveX (custom) control
acImage	Image
acLabel	Label
acLine	Line
acListBox	List box
acObjectFrame	Unbound object frame or chart
acOptionButton	Option button
acOptionGroup	Option group
acPage	Page
acPageBreak	Page break
acRectangle	Rectangle
acSubform	Subform/subreport
acTabCtl	Tab
acTextBox	Text box
acToggleButton	Toggle button

The ControlType property can only be set by using Visual Basic in form Design view or report Design view, but it can be read in all views.

Remarks

The ControlType property is useful not only for checking for a specific control type in code, but also for changing the type of control to another type. For example, you can change a text box to a combo box by setting the ControlType property for the text box to acComboBox while in form Design view.

You can use the ControlType property to change characteristics of similar controls on a form according to certain conditions. For example, if you don't want users to edit existing data in text boxes, you can set the SpecialEffect property for all text boxes to Flat and set the form's AllowEdits property to No. (The SpecialEffect property doesn't affect whether data can be edited; it's used here to provide a visual cue that the control behavior has changed.)

The ControlType property is also used to specify the type of control to create when you are using the CreateControl method.

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