David,

>The click was in the form not the grid, but grids are rather insistent on having their RecordSource as the current workarea whenever it has focus.

I ran his "test": the click in the Form is deselecting the recordsource and is not refreshing the grid properly when you click the grid (you can see it in the DataView window). Reselecting in the click solved the problem.

>>Frankly I can't envision a use case where two columns of a grid need to be based on two different cursors.

Is your issue just with cursors ? I have many cases where a grid of a purchase or work orders table has a client code with a relation into the name of client master table. You can even do "finds" on these columns.

>There are just so many other ways to accomplish the task that don't involve multiple cursors IMHO SET RELATION is one of those 2.x style commands that ought to be deprecated. There are a few places I use it from the command window while browsing related tables in an investigative mode.

IMO, a relation can outperform a SELECT ... and it's less coding and tidier depending on the context (ie. no "third" party).

A SELECT implies a join between all the records on the one side, whereas a relation is only executed for the current set that is visible in the grid.