>Bruce,
>yes I have, it seems to refresh textboxes and the like but not combos which is my problem, I have always been under the impression that all objects contained in a container are refreshed by the containers refresh method, the behaviour I'm trying to produce is ; if a form setting = 'whatever' then disable/enable a control by calling its' refresh method, in the base class refresh event of all my controls is contained the following code
>
>this.readonly = thisform.mode = 'VIEW'
>or
>this.enabled = thisform.mode # 'VIEW'

I think what you're driving at is generally a good perspective, but particularly grids may not always subscribe to it, and require special techniques to refresh, setfocus, etc. It also depends, I guess, on the data source/object type how refreshing is accomplished - some are more 'automatic' than others...for instance a bound textbox refresh is extremely simple, but a combo or grid may need a special requery to accomplish it...