Brilliant. See lots of opportunities for tying such an error handler with data dictionaries or things like that. I'll work on the idea during the coming holidays.

>Hi Paul ----
>
>When dealing with situations where there are stringent or interrelated business rules, I try to take a collaborative approach between the application and the user. For example, I try hard to avoid messageboxes with "Cannot save...you messed up" with an OK button and no way out.
>
>Here's a method I try to use when possible: An alerts dialog and control. Have a button on the form with the prompt Alerts. In the form Init, create a temporary cursor to hold alert messages (the sturcture may vary but I think you'll get the idea).
>
>Continuously test vs. biz rules when values are changed that can affect those rules. Modify the contents of the alert table as the values dictate. The alerts button brings up a modal form showing a Grid with the current alerts table entries. If there are no records in the alerts table, disable the Alerts button on the main form.
>
>See? If there are violations to biz rules (or data rules for that matter) then the user sees an enabled Alert button and can see what they are to take corrective action. If not, the Alert button is disabled and the user can assume that an OK or Save is cool. Either way, you are collaborating with the user to minimize the "You messed up" errors that users can dislike.