Hi Jim,
>
While we're getting nowhere, I reply to clarify further (obviously my thread-started was UNclear)...


It's clear enough but I guess our approach to solving things like this is different. If I used the line

THISFORM.List.Filllist(VAL(SUBSTR(THISFORM.Tree.selectedItem.Key,2)))

and VFP claimed '.SelectedItem' did not evaluate to an object my first question would be 'What is it if not an object? ' but you don't seem to think this relevant.
I've seen cases using OCXs where the real culprit is not the named item at all (in the case above, for example, the problem could lie with 'Tree' or 'key'). Admittedly not likely, but you haven't attempted to rule it out.

Out of curiosity, in your example, does making Nodes(3) the .SelectedItem work OK ?

Regards,
Viv