>>>That control is the first textbox, where the user would have to enter something anyway, even if there was a New button. If that control is bound to document number, leaving it empty is all it takes - so user has to perform no extra action. Actually, less than with a New button.
>>
>>Are you trying to obnubilate (nice word, eh?) the issue?
>
>Is there a common English word for that (Serbian, of course, has a corresponding verb, though it isn't "endarken", it's "enfoggen"), or should we notify Terry?
>

Muddy? Fog? - feel free to verb-alize everything! Otherwise, it is clear (as mud) for me that you need Terry to help you obnubilate.

>>To leave it empty you DO SOMETHING - TAB, arrow, click,...
>
>Yes, press enter. Same as you'd have to if you entered something. No extra action
>

OK, last try: Pressing Enter is extra. New would not need it, it will nicely move to the field you actually need to start.

>>so, actually you'll never do less than pressing New (or its shotcut key). New will do the "leave it empty" for you, plus, you don't have to have to know the "leave it empty" secret,
>
>...which the user needs to learn only once (for all document entry forms), from the tooltip,

But every, ahem, New user needs to learn that. And everyone, everytime, need to remember it - did you consider Alzheimer's effect?


>... and the New button needs to be clicked every time, but you are aware of that...
>

Yes, and so does the Enter need to be hit every time, but you don't seem to be aware of that...



>>plus you shouldn't have access to that control at all since you must leave it empty to do what you want,etc.
>
>Or I can type the number of the document I want to look up. Or a question mark if I want to search through all documents. But I couldn't do that if I didn't have access to it, I'd have to specifically click elsewhere if I wanted to search or if I wanted a specific document.
>

All very clever things, but I prefer plain.

>>There are other issues, but I don't want to muddy the waters even more.
>>I know that in spite of all books, guidelines, etc. we'll never have 100% consensus in the UI design, and that's the way it should be.
>
>Right :)
>

Left!

>
>>>After every save, the form sits on a blank record.
>
>>What if you didn't save anything? Let's say you did a look-up and you didn't make any changes. Now you want to add a new record - what do you do?
>
>Cancel or Esc. Clears the form, i.e. does equivalent of tablerevert(), append blank, refresh.
>
>>>>>>I know how much you like being saved without asking ;)
>>>>>
>>>>>I really don't like banks.
>>>>
>>>>Neither do I. I believe of the (your?) founding fathers said that they are more dangerous than a standing army.
>>>
>>>That army has already won :).
>
>>But isn't it funny that they won't say "Mission Accomplished"?
>
>It's not accomplished (we still have the right to use our money from time to time), and I think they don't prefer missionary position anyway. It'd rather be an an(nu)al position, sneaky from behind, or something about quarters (being quartered, or something about four times a year).
>
>>>I don't remember being founded, and I think I can't have more than one father, unless we rewrite a lot of biology :).
>>
>>"your?" as "Americans" or "American republic" - I'm (almost) sure you understood.
>
>So I did, so what. I understood it at least two ways, and used the one I found applicable to my case.