Hi Steve,
In a perfect world, yes the system should genereate the number, I agree. Some clients, however, use part of their customer p.o. number as part of their order number and just want the flexibility to come up with meaningful order numbers. Some of these are alphanumeric some entirely alpha and so on. I feel if they are paying the freight, they can have what they want. As far as the fields being filled in in any order, again, I agree, but I was looking to streamline as much as possible. This form is based on an existing Clipper application so I was trying for as much emulation of input as I could get. Good observations, thank you.

Regards,
Carmen
>Hi Carmen,
>
>Please pardon me for asking, why do you want to do this? The order number should be generated by the system, not by the user. Also, shouldn't the user be able to fill in the fields in any order they want to?
>
>As others have said, returning zero in valid() will prevent the user from leaving the textBox...
>
>>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