Kevin,

>What I need is a text log, like a memo field, that the
>user can enter notes into. The question is how to go
>about setting up the data.

Will the user notes be tied to each individual detail record? If so, just add a memo field to the detail history table and pop up an editbox for their entries. You don't want to put it all in a free-form text file that they can edit at will, and then you have to parse back out -- that would be nightmarish and very likely to result in a failed project.

You can, however, *show* it all in one text file with all of the memo info showing with each detail item by selecting the detail records matching your header primary key, then building a text string by scanning the cursor and storing text and field values and memo field contents in whatever format you want, putting it into a file with STRTOFILE or storing it into a memo field of a temp table, then displaying it for the user the scroll through.

You could also use SET PRINTER TO filename or SET ALTERNATE TO filename and using ?, ??, or ??? to output to the file, then putting up a form to scroll thru the contents of the file.

If they need to edit or add comments, however, you must do that directly associated with the detail record's memo field (editbox in a modal form, or a page in a pageframe, etc), update the record, then rebuild the free-form text.

>The big issue is, how can the user see ALL the notes at
>one time. The user HAS to be able to scroll up and down
>and see ALL the notes at one time. And I dont see any
>way of using a grid here (not that I would If I could )

You could have a grid with a button named "Details" or "Memo" or "Annotations", which would pop up the memo info when clicked. If you need all memos showing at the same time, use the approach outlined above.

>The kicker is the history items need to be invoicable
>separetly at any time. So I might have 2 history records
>from last month, already invoiced, and 3 more added this
>month which are not yet invoiced.

This indicates once again that you MUST have the details as separate records in the Detail History table.