How do I disable all controls in ASP.NET page?

Question

I have multiple dropdownlist in a page and would like to disable all if user selects a checkbox which reads disable all. So far I have this code and it is not working. Any s

Answer 1

I know this is an old post but this is how I have just solved this problem. AS per the title "How do I disable all controls in ASP.NET page?" I used Reflection to achieve this; it will work on all control types which have an Enabled property. Simply call DisableControls passing in the parent control (I.e., Form).

C#:

private void DisableControls(System.Web.UI.Control control)
{
    foreach (System.Web.UI.Control c in control.Controls) 
    {
        // Get the Enabled property by reflection.
        Type type = c.GetType();
        PropertyInfo prop = type.GetProperty("Enabled");

        // Set it to False to disable the control.
        if (prop != null) 
        {
            prop.SetValue(c, false, null);
        }

        // Recurse into child controls.
        if (c.Controls.Count > 0) 
        {
            this.DisableControls(c);
        }
    }
}

VB:

    Private Sub DisableControls(control As System.Web.UI.Control)

        For Each c As System.Web.UI.Control In control.Controls

            ' Get the Enabled property by reflection.
            Dim type As Type = c.GetType
            Dim prop As PropertyInfo = type.GetProperty("Enabled")

            ' Set it to False to disable the control.
            If Not prop Is Nothing Then
                prop.SetValue(c, False, Nothing)
            End If

            ' Recurse into child controls.
            If c.Controls.Count > 0 Then
                Me.DisableControls(c)
            End If

        Next

    End Sub