Hi

>My personal framework/mindset has most 'table maintenance' forms as modal. This allows forms which have combos that draw from these tables to have buttons next to the combos that launch these maintenance forms, allow you to edit/add/search, and then return to the combos and refresh them as per whatever was done in the maint forms.

I think it is a good concept to leave them modal. It is very less maintenance and you know exactly when to refresh the data of maintenance tables.

>Should I change it so that the combo passes a reference to itself to the form, and the form refreshes the combo on its release, or does this lead to more problems when you try to release the original form and still have the reference open in the maint form?

I think this could lead to more problems maintenancewise. Another approach for Non-Modal maintenance forms would be to allow forms to register their maintenance tables in a lightweight object linked to the form. Whenever Maintenance data is changed, you loop through the opened forms, locate the right table name in the object and set a flag.

This way when you come back to the form, you know which data needs to be refreshed. Just an approach....