Peter:

For the record mark to show on the grid upon loading try a this.grid.setfocus() in the activate of the page.

To prevent a cursor in an active cell, I usually put code in the when event of whatever control is in each column (textbox, etc...)that looks something like:

if this.readonly = .t.
return .f.
else
return .t.
endif

This way if i set it readonly it will not take a cursor but the row still gets focus and if i set readonly off it works the way it normally would.

As for getting the entire row to highlight, I'm not sure off the top of my head but you might try something with dynamicbackcolor in the columns.

Hope this helps