>>Bruce,
>>Does this mean that you have found a way of displaying a message in your status bar as the user moves over various menu options?
>
>Short answer: No. Not until vfp menus get OOP.
>
>Longer answer: We looked at this more seriously a few years ago, and decided we don't need that feature at all. I did an informal survey, and found that most users did not even realize there *was* a message coming from a menu. When I demonstrated the menu/messaging to most users, they'd say something like, "oh, I didn't know that." But they generally weren't in the least excited by it. And, the *one single place* where you most might want the feature is for IE Favorites, but there the messagebar is almost totally hidden when the menu drops anyway.
>
>In addition, menus allow enough space to explain in words, right on the menu, well enough what the menu function does.
>
>Add to this the fact that for all the most important menu functions, I have toolbar buttons with both tooltips and statusbar messages.
>
>So the bottom line is that we don't need menu messages, as a practical matter, and hardly anyone even notices them, at least at my workplace.
>
>Having said that, if/when vfp gets OOP menus, I will definitely add that functionality, even if users don't even know it exists, but because it's a fairly standard Windows functionality, and I do try to stay with the prevailing standards.

Bruce
Thanks for the long answer. I guess that in practice I agree with you it's just very annoying that it can't be done!
Caroline