Jison,

Thanks very much for your reply, but as I said, I'm very much a VFP rookie. I don't know how what it means to look at the "class created by the wizard then follow the event." Is there a simple way to find what, exactly, is making this new field inaccessible until the "edit" button is clicked? Is there something I can change in the button or in the new field itself? I've opened the "Properties" box for each and searched through every tab (Data, Methods, Layout & Other) but don't see anything that looks like it's having this effect.

Thanks all,

John

>Hi john,
> when you use wizard in your data entry, it will a class derived from FFC . try check at the ur class created by the wizard then follow the event.
> Another method it to create a textbox class then drop it on your form. because i guess internally the wizard use setall() your custom class will excempted in this case.but its not a good idea. mudify your class generated by wizard would be better.