> In the case you have several different panes you may want to show at
> different times, then why have only one object? Instantiate them on
> first use, and show/hide as needed.
> You can create an array or collection of these things, and just call up
> the one you need. If it's not there, add it to array/collection.
> I'd do this specially if these objects were heavy, i.e. open a lot
> of tables and do a lot of disk pushups when instantiated.

Ah well using my old military thinking, a lot of push-ups should be good, right? :)

The design ideology was to be generic, to have a lighter footprint, to perform operations on all forms as if they were the same, and in fact they were for certain intents and purposes, blah, blah, best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

I can't help but wonder if ideology and idiot might derive from the same Latin root word?

Thanks for your help. I'll just have to augment my code with the test for the parent and if not to set the object reference to NULL as you suggest and see how that works.

...A