ACC: How to Dynamically Unlock a Control with a Message Box

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Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. The following example displays a message box to verify that the user wants to update the Description text box in the Categories form in Northwind.mdb.

CAUTION: Following the steps in this example will modify the sample database Northwind.mdb. You may want to back up the Northwind.mdb file and perform these steps on a copy of the database.

1. Start Microsoft Access, and open the sample database Northwind.mdb.
2. Open the Categories form in Design view.
3. Click Code on the View menu, and type the following line in the Declarations section:

   Public fEditDescription As Boolean
   					

4. Set the OnCurrent property of the form to the following event procedure:

         Private Sub Form_Current()
   
            ' Lock the Description control for each record.
            Me!Description.Locked = True
            fEditDescription = False
   
         End Sub
   					

5. Open the property sheet of the Description text box, and change the Locked property to Yes.
6. Set the OnKeyDown property of Description to the following event procedure:

         Private Sub Description_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, _
            Shift As Integer)
   
            ' If the field is not flagged for editing, prompt the user
            ' for confirmation about unlocking the control.
            If fEditDescription = False Then
               If MsgBox("Do you want to change Description?", _
                     vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbDefaultButton2, _
                     "Confirmation") = vbYes Then
   
                  ' If the response is Yes, unlock the field
                  ' and flag it as being edited.
                  Me!Description.Locked = False
                  fEditDescription = True
               End If
            End If
   
         End Sub
   					

7. Switch to Form view and attempt to change the contents of Description.
   
   Note that a message box appears and asks whether you want to change Description. If you click Yes, Description is unlocked and you can edit its contents for that particular record. If you click No, Description remains locked.