(fired off the last message accidently before I was completely done. Second try has some additional stuff at the end.)

>Which table is the textbox bound to? The parent or the child?

Main table ... wojrn. (I think that's the parent. I still haven't grokked which is which in a relation but if I look at the Datasession window, the graphic seems to indicate that wojrn is the root of the relation which I presume is analogous to parantage).

Do you change the area that is selected in the Valids?

No. Aside from specifying in the DE that wojrn is to be selected initially, there is no code in the form that explicitly selects the work area.

If the select is changed from the parent and the record pointer moved in the child then the relation is suspended until you change the record pointer in the parent again.

As I said, there is no explicit selecting. I suppose there could be some implicit selecting going on depending on how VFP implements relational references when the user scans through the combolist associated with the opdesc table. Should I do something in the 'opdesc.lostfocus' to unsuspend the relation?

>
>P.S. The valid is kind of a strange thing to be calling to change the colors. JMO.

Yeah, my instincts predicted your comment here. I'm a VFP rookie and this is the way that occured to me to acheive the result I wanted. In this case, whether or not those textfields are in a critical range is not only a function of their own value, but also a function of other fields in the same row. So, their range needs to be checked when I leave the field and when I leave the related fields. Which probably means I should have put those valid calls in the valids of the related fields. Though putting them in the refresh does the same thing and also takes care of any future mods that might modify the value of either of the related fields from a third location.

In my limited experience, the valids seem like the natural place to adjust the displayed information about a controlsource depending on where it lies within its valid range. So, there is method to my madness though I'm sure there's a more efficient way to go crazy ;-). If you know a more 'accepted' way of handling this situation, I'd love to hear it (though, we do digress from the original problem)