>>Something you might look at that would make your life much easier and faster for data-entry as well would be to use the grid for displaying the child records only and creating a new form for adding child records. When you click on "Add" the form would proceed to input the data until they press save. At that point the current child-rec would be saved and a new one would be added automatically. This way they could easily add records until they exit the form. This would also save you the trouble of having to display/hide textboxes, worrying about not enough screen real estate, etc.
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>>I've had many programs that have used grids to display child records and I learned long ago it is much easier impliment an add form for the grid than try to do any data-entry on the grid itself.
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>Good point, Michael. I use a container that pops up for data entry, hiding the grid completely.
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>Barbara
Barbara.
Would this "container" be another form/page and would it allow the user to browse the recs already added (like a grid would) easily? Part of the problem is, when a user is entering perhaps only few line-items it maybe hard to get lost. However, when there are few dozen line-items for each invoice (since my client is doing wholesale, orders are usually big), sometimes the user has to quickly browse what's already been entered (sometimes more than once) so as to not make duplicate entries. Not to mock your solutios but wouldn't "flipping" between container and grid view be somewhat tedious in such case?

Still searching for a better way.
Thanks.
John.