>Is SET KEY or SET FILTER a more effective way of linking tables??
Keeping views apart as a choice, SET KEY is more effective in performance. SET FILTER still kills me in performance despite Rush-me-more, I nearly never use it :) But OTOH SET KEY needs some experience and not the same thing as SET FILTER. ie: If you don't use unique keys and SET KEY, your seek operations might fail, provided the first physical entry is before your SET KEY range :

*
*Name   Category
*Bill   A
*Bill   B
*Bill   C
*James  B
set order to tag category
SET KEY TO "B"
? seek("Bill",cMyTable,"Name") && Search on name tag - returns .f.
set order to tag name  && performs implicit "SET KEY TO"
? seek("Bill") && Returns .t.

As said before, if views aren't in discussion, for childs, I think SET RELATION is still the superior choice over SET KEY and SET FILTER. For grids, linkmaster, relationalexpression, childorder properties constitute a perfect, reliable and fast "SET KEY&FILTER" :)
Cetin