Hi Sam.

>I seems there is just no way to intercede between a control and a field rule bound directly to a Table

Sure there is. Here are at least two different ways to handle this:

1. Use an error handler. When a field rule fails, error 1582 occurs. Trap for that and do whatever you wish, such as displaying a message.

2. Bind the control to a field in a view based the table rather than the table field. Then the field rule will only fail when you use TABLEUPDATE() to write the view data back to the table. It won't fail with an error, but by returning .F., and you can use AERROR() to see what went wrong and handle it accordingly.

Doug