John,

>Do you USE them in the load method of the form?

As long as you have a SET DATABASE TO you can USE them. You can also drag and drop the view into a form DE from the PM.

>Do you use the DBC update function? I thought that by using that one could eliminate special key fields. I learned a long time ago that parent child tables will always want to change the parent key field for some reason if it is part if the data (phone, SSN, etc.) so I went to using an alpha-numeric key generator. Should I go back to using alpha-numeric key fields and relate on them or use the cascade of the DBC?

I use a standard NextID() function that uses a table for keys as the Default Value for each PK. For FKs I use a udf ParentKey( "TheParentTable.iID" ). With the way I work with child tables the parent table is always open and on the record appropriate for the child table.

The only restriction on the RI rules is you can't have concatenated keys. Integer keys give my apps more than enough keyspace for the next couple of decades.