Make all Controls on a Form read-only at once

Question

Does anyone have a piece of code to make all Controls (or even all TextBoxes) in a Form which is read-only at once without having to set every Control to read-only individua

Answer 1

I just developed a recursive solution that handles any kind of Web Control, using a simple static method and ASP.NET polymorphysm.

/// 

/// Handle "Enabled" property of a set of Controls (and all of the included child controls through recursivity)
/// By default it disable all, making all read-only, but it can also be uset to re-enable everything, using the "enable" parameter 
/// 
/// Set of controls to be handled. It could be the entire Page.Controls set or all of the childs of a given control (property "Controls" of any Control-derived class)
/// Desired value of the property "enable" of each control. 
public static void DisableControls(ControlCollection controls, bool enable = false)
{
    foreach (Control control in controls)
    {
        var wCtrl = control as WebControl;
        if (wCtrl != null)
        {
            wCtrl.Enabled = enable;
        }

        if (control.Controls.Count > 0)
            DisableControls(control.Controls, enable);
    }
}

/// 

/// Enable a set of Controls (and all of the included child controls through recursivity).
/// Friendly name for DisableControls(controls, true), that achieve the same result.
/// 
/// Set of controls to be handled. It could be the entire Page.Controls set or all of the childs of a given control (property "Controls" of any Control-derived class)
public static void EnableControls(ControlCollection controls)
{
    DisableControls(controls, true);
}

This is tested and looks fairly fast (less than a millisecond in a web form with 25+ controls to be disabled).

If you prefer an extension method, i think it should be enough to change the solution as follows:

public static void DisableControls(this Control control, bool enable = false)
{
    foreach (Control ctrl in control.Controls)
    {
        var wCtrl = ctrl as WebControl;
        if (wCtrl != null)
        {
            wCtrl.Enabled = enable;
        }

        if (ctrl.Controls.Count > 0)
            ctrl.DisableControls(enable);
    }
}

public static void EnableControls(this Control control)
{
    control.DisableControls(true);
}