>Thanks for the response and ideas Tracy. I was hoping to avoid disabling and then enabling all the rest of the controls on the form but I think that might be a good solution. It's a bit of extra code, but probably time well spent.

Regards,
Carmen
Hi Carmen, I agree with everyone else. However, I had a somewhat similar requirement not long ago and in addition to not allowing the user to leave the text box until it was filled in, I also put constraints on all of the other controls that there had to be a valid value in the primary textbox control before all other controls on the form (except cancel) were enabled. That prevented the users from using the mouse to click on a different control and entering information when the form first loads.
>Tracy
>
>>Greetings To All
>> I'm not sure if my approach is right on this one. I am writing an order entry application. When the user creates a new order, I would like to force him to enter the new order number before progressing to the rest of the details of the order header. I have a textbox that is linked to a memory array object tied to the form as a property. My question is, is it possible to force the user to enter a value into a textbox before moving on? I have tried to do it using the valid method and the lost focus method, but as soon as the user acknowledges the error message, he is allowed access to the rest of the fields on the form. Can a text box be sort of modal or should I launch a new form containing the textbox and make that modal? Appreciation as always to the helpful ones on the thread.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Carmen