Larry,

>So I must have a DBC to use views? Whether they're based on free tables or not?

Yes, even if it's only a temp DBC with the views built on the fly.

>Sounds right, besides, your other method (with linkmaster, etc) works pretty well too!

I've sworn off linkmaster grids they can be quite fragile and require the form environment around them to be just right or they fail. Plus the vertical scroll thumb is flakey enough as it is, and when it's sized on the whole child table instead of the subset it confuses the users. I now only use parm-views for child grids.