Sorting with Protected Cells

[jc.021286]

Hey there, I've done quite a bit of research and have found this to be quite difficult. I have a worksheet that has 12 columns that a person can make a data entry into, but in order to add or delete or edit a row (#, name, dept. etc) they have to use either an "Add" or "Edit" button.

I have done the record macro and done things such as

For a = 1 to sheets.count
        For a = 1 To Sheets.Count
        Sheets(a).Protect Password:="Secret", UserInterfaceOnly:=True, AllowSorting:=True, AllowFiltering:=True 
Next a

to no avail...

I have applied the autofilter and need to enable the sort ascending and descending.

I thought about if a person selected the autofilter row "4:4" that it would unprotect, and then reprotect if the selection was not "4:4"... Though that does not work, as You can have selected "D9" and if you use the mouse to attempt the autofilter, that does not work...

If I had a Workbook_open() unprotect all the sheets and a before_save reprotect the cells. Would I then be able to simply have a worksheet_Change() macro where if the any of my "protected" cells underwent a change, it would undo/not allow the change... Would this essentially work to allow me to make get my desired result of a protected sheet with some functionality for sorting and filtering?

thanks,
jc