>How do you programmatically update a view after you modify a structure so you don't get "base fields have changed" message

You are trying to do this in an app? I don't think there's a good way to do this programmatically. The view info is in the DBC, so you have to alter it somehow with code. That means either hacking into the DBC programmatically (bad idea!), or else doing a DROP VIEW before doing your ALTER TABLE and then a new create view afterward (better idea)