I am working with the Visual Accountmate (VAM) accounting system. VAM uses formsets. I have studied numerous threads in this forum that talk about the pitfalls of using formsets. I am trying to come up with a methodology that will enable me to retain the look/feel/logical grouping of forms employed by VAM but without using formsets.

Please consider that one constraint I have is that I must use VFP5 or 6, since the forms will be called from within VAM which uses 5 and 6. I have seen some posts on here regarding 'tabless' pageframes as an alternative to formsets. But I haven't investigated this yet. Is this a VFP 7 function?

VAM transaction functionality such as sales orders/invoices is typically implemented with 3 forms in a formset: 1) A main form 2) A detail form, called from the main form, for additional info on a row in grid on the main form 3)A save form that is called when the user clicks save from the main form's toolbar.

VAM uses hide and show to bring up the 'sub forms'.

What would be a good technique to use to logically relate 3 or more forms this way? It would be good if they could share the datasession. For now I am not using forms as classes, as I am not familiar (yet) with the techniques for constructing the data environment manually, but ultimately I would like to go in that direction.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

TIA