>Just started using one in a text box control, VALUE_ASSIGN. There is no controlSource, I just use .VALUE.
>
>It appears that if code in the form does an explicit assign: ...VALUE = "00", the VALUE_ASSIGN method gets called. Neat!
>
>But if the VALUE gets modified by user entry, the VALUE_ASSIGN method does not get called.
>
>1) Am I understanding this right?
>
>2) Is there another way to do it? I tried putting a This.VALUE = This.VALUE in the VALID method...when watching in the debugger, everything flashed like VFP was working away doing something I coulnd't see (even when I was stopped on a breakpoint).

You've observed correctly, and Mike explained why. Here's how I handle what you want to do:

My base textbox class has an empty method called AnyChange, which is called from both the ProgrammaticChange event, and the InteractiveChange event. when I have code that needs to run no matter how the textbox gets its new value, I put in in the AnyChange method.