>Basically, you understood me right, but the major point was that there is no necessity to use modal forms at all, and moreover HIDE/SHOW some forms. Give your user flexibility to open/close what s/he wants.

I can see your point argued quite convincingly. Using modal forms and show/hide forms (without the user doing it through Window menu) is against standard MDI design. But saying it's not necessary and saying "don't do it" are different. I think you will agree that, if your user asks for the interface to act a certain way, you give 'em what they want. But if they're flexible, you should stick with industry interface standards.

Note that I'm not saying programmer should be flexible in programming standards. Only user interface. Table design, class design, coding style are not the domain of the end-user, IMHO.

There was a FoxTalk editorial a few months ago, where the writer talked about another programmer he knows who complained that his program was bad because the user dictated the table structures to him. The author's response was basically "Don't let the user dictate the table structures. You can use SQL selects to present the data in the format the user wants, but behind the scenes your tables should still be properly normalized." I agree with that 100%.

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, "preaching to the choir", etc.