Thanks guys ... I've solved the problem. Chatting with a friend last night, he mentioned something about the autorefresh in browses that goes back to the old days of FP. That got me thinking that the problem was not really about checking old values before editting, but simply of showing the correct data on the form. So, I put a timer on the form class that simply does a form refresh every X seconds as long as the form is not in EditMode. Voila! Quick, simple and it works pretty good.

Now, I can get some real work done < g >
Bonnie

>Hi Jim,
>
>I agree with you that an Edit button should be avoided. I don't use it myself. But I'm using optimistic buffering.
>
>What you didn't mention is that pessimistic buffering, while having some reason to justify it's use, is not a recommended choice. Mainly because SQL servers are not supporting it, making it hard to migrate to a SQL backend if the need arise in the future.
>
>Given the nature of pessimistic buffering (lock the record before any modifications), the controls on the form need to be updated in some way before any update occur to ensure that the user is updating the right values. I've made some recommendations, an Edit button was one of them. I didn't mention anywhere that it's a good interface, but it is the simpliest to implement in a pessimistick locking scenario.
>
>>The strange part of this (to me) is that you are using pessimistic row buffering which, as I read it, should work exactly as you expect without special steps of any kind.
>>
>>That leads to the question... are you really really sure that you are using pessimistic row buffering on the table in question (and, of course, that the form field control sources *do* point to the actual table record fields)???
>>
>>I see that some are trying to encourage you to go with an 'Edit" button but that, so far at least, you are resisting. I hope you persist with this.
>>This is one of countless interface "issues" Alan Cooper exposes in his book "About Face - The Essentials of user interface design". Thsi book was much lauded in the VFP community about 2 years ago. Yet virtually *none* of the issues raised has been even marginally addressed in Windows (interface) or the VFP interface capabilities, even though there has been a Win98 and a VFP 6 *since* its publication. I get the impression that we really like to read books (or at least promote them) but that we pay little service to the messages in those (much lauded) books.