I am rewriting a 16bit C app with VFP 5.0 and I need to get some feedback on user interface ideas. The old system had every type of user activity on a seperate form. For example: Search form with add, edit, delete calls a main data form which calls children forms etc...

I started by combining the search and data entry on one form with a pageframe. Then added the seach forms of any child tables on more tabs of the pageframe. if the user went to a child table search tab and double clicked on the grid or click add or edit button it went to a new data entry form for the child table. In some cases I can have upto 9 tabs. On a low end pentium it takes awhile to come up 5 or 6 seconds.

I could break out the child tables into separate forms and just have a button to call it on the main screen or maybe skip the tabs and try something else.

One thing about the tabs, it is hard to move between them without the mouse. Each tab must have hotkey defined in the caption to move from one tab to another on the pageframe, unless there is another key combo that will do this.

Anyway, any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.