My experience with UT has resulted in my recognition of several design flaws in my application's main form. I have applied many of the suggestions of UT contributors and as a result have improved both the appearance and functionality of my form. However, I not yet addressed what I believe is a fundamental design flaw and would appreciate any help or suggestions for a "better"(yes, I know there is no 'best')way of constructing my form.


General Issue:

My main form is a multi-page(8) PageFrame used as a primary input form. The first page uses fields almost exclusively from my Parent table and works well. The other pages contain fields from child and grandchild tables. I'm using optimistic row buffering. I have several command button(Next,First,Last,Previous,Find,Add,and Delete) which reside on the Form not on the Pages.

My concern is with the behavior of my Add and Delete buttons. When the form launches it appears to be in edit mode since you can directly edit data previously entered in text fields (the form is from the VFP Base Class and does not have any custom properties, i.e.,cEditMode[I know, I know I shouldn't use Base Classes]). When the Add button is clicked a new record is inserted in the Parent table and in the "FirstBorn" Child table. My problem is I am using very awkward means to add records on pages with only child/grandchild fields. I have experimented and found my Add button works more like I need it to if I put the button on the page instead of the form ( this of course means coding the button differently for each page or keeping them on the for but having the code different depending on which page is active).

I seem to be making things more complicated than they need to be. But I can't get my delete button to fuction properly. It only works for deleting records in the parent table. When I try to delete child records it tells me the file is in use or tells me I can't delete unless I have exclusive use. When I try to "use child.table exclusively" or "set exclusive on" it produces the errors noted above.

I'm sorry for rambling on. I probably could use some sleep and a new perspective.

TIA

--lincoln