>The _screen property while for years I have hated it, avoided it like the plague, actually found a simple way to hide and have all my forms in applications written directly to the desktop. sure I lost the ability to use menus, but forms acted like forms, floating forms on the desktop, which popped up and cleared on demand. no box (_screen) to hold them. etc etc.

Form set as "Top Level" can hold menus, forms, toolbars, and other controls.

>So, here is my thought for the day, maybe, I was wrong in not using the _screen. maybe, my apps would be cleaner, and more pleasing to the eye. more flat if I ONLY used one _screen, and no forms at all. that way I could put controls directly on the _screen element, remove them, keep one menu on top, and maybe a side bar menu on the left of the application, but start to write text boxes and labels, command buttons etc, directly to the _screen.
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>I know, it not going to simple, as I am most likely, going to loose the ability to use the screen painter / form painter, (but I have thought for that too...
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>On the upside, all my screens - forms , could be stored directly as .prg's or classes.
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>I just started to think about it looking at the layout of Outlook express. it uses simply one screen. complete with menus, and a toolbar. Sure a form pops up now and again, when writing an email, but the entire _screen is used, sort of a like a giant navigation system, and if you want a do data entry - like an email, then a form pops up. what could be clearer or more intuitive for a user.

My only complain with _SCREEN object is that you can not write a custom method with it. But regardless of whether I use _SCREEN or Form object as the top level window, I could design the system desktop the way I want it: idiot user friendly.