>>My initial impression is child forms are somewhat unruly (or maybe underdeveloped). Do you agree or disagree?
>
>I don't think the "unruly" -- you need to be aware of the settings that affect them. First the "parent" form would be set as ShowWindow=2 (As Top Level). Then the child windows would be ShowWindow=1 (In Top Level). The default setting is on the desktop area of VFP (ShowWindow=0) and then all the forms are "equal" even though one may be spawned from another. The AutoCenter, Left, and Right properties are relative the ShowWindow setting.

I tried ShowWindow=2 for the parent window and it was a disaster, at least in the VFP development environment. Setting the Left/Right/Top/Bottom properties relative to the parent window is something I didn't try. But still there was the issue of the parent form's controls going dead after the child window was activated.

IAC it's working to my satisfaction now with Sergey's suggestion of using page frames instead. Just minor tweaking needed. (Knock on wood <g>).

Thanks for the reply.