>Having become dependent on the view designer and the DE to hold them I now face a problem. I have found that
>the view designer cannot handle anything even remotely complex. I will have to program the views
>by hand. No big deal. But where is the best place to set them up assuming I will use them thoughout many
>forms? In the init of the main form?

You only need to create the view once, during development. The view definition will be saved in the DBC just like any view created with the View Designer.