>>Sometimes on a new form, when cycling between development and testing (running the form standalone) the data environment disappears. If I close the form and reopen it... WOW ...it's back again. But if I change the form and then run it - the DE is gone forever. I'm getting quite adept at reentering DE tables. Any ideas on how to stop this behavior?
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>Happened to me several times in VFP5. The trick there is not to save the form when you see it with an empty DE, and also to close and save the form before running it. The thing happened only when I was running the form while editing it - the "save before running" feature is the prime suspect for not catching the DE each time.
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>The trouble is that it doesn't happen twenty times or more, and then once it happens, it may happen again - no rule. I remember I had to rebuild the same DE with about fifteen tables and views several times. If this happens more times, you can always have your DS in another form and use my CopyDS utility - it's posted here in the FAQ: http://www.levelextreme.com/wconnect/wc.dll?FournierTransformation~?2,33,Forum=5,29,695
>so at least you'd only have to run this occasionally to copy it back.
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>Didn't happen to me in VFP6 or 7.

Dragan;

I had the same problem using VFP 6.0 and Visual MaxFrame Professional 4.0, about two years ago for a major project. What a pain! Forms had a dozen or more views and tables in the data environment. In my case I would save the form before running it and it would still wipe out the data environment when the form was run. This occured about 90% of the time.

By combining tools you have more opportunity to "discover" problems of incompatibility. Was it the fault of VFP or VMP? God only knows and He does not talk to me. I was lucky because the guys who use VMP did not have this problem. I guess I am truly blessed.

By the way I do not like to use the data environment of a form but did so to expedite delivery of the project to the client. Rather than take time out to change the framework I just used it as it came “out of the box". I prefer opening tables while the menu is coming alive with a routine and go from there. It is a matter of preference and circumstance. I still do not trust the data environment though. Unless you want to be bitten stay away from snakes (and data environments). :)

Tom