Access Hacks

Hack #86. Bulk-Update Controls on a Form

Tap the Controls property to make fast property changes.

When working with a form's design, typically you set properties for controls with the property sheet. You can select single controls one by one and set properties, or you can select a handful of controls and update them together. When you use the latter method, the number of properties listed on the property sheet shrinks to just those that are common to all the selected controls.

This works fine for the most part—that is, setting properties to multiple controls isn't difficult. But what if you had to see what a property is before deciding whether to change it? In this situation, the property sheet won't help you. When multiple controls are selected, the property sheet can't display individual control properties. It displays a property's value if all the selected controls have the same value for the property, but that isn't always the case.

Accessing Control Properties in Code

Luckily, Access has a Controls property that belongs to the form object, and a Properties property for the controls themselves. This makes it possible to read and write control properties. To start, Example 8-6 shows a routine that reads control properties.

Example 8-6. Reading control properties

Sub list_control_properties() Dim form_name As String Dim ctl As Control Dim list_type As Integer Dim prop_num As Integer form_name = "frm1" ' change as needed! DoCmd.OpenForm (form_name), acDesign list_type = 2 ' change ...