Hi Bonnie

Many thanks for the help, it's certainly helped me a great deal, and it's good to fnid somebody who can relate how we used to do things in foxpro and relate them to .net.

Using your suggestions I've managed to implement a pre and post click type method on my command button class.

However, I've got a problem attempting to abstract the default click code out of parent class. eg ;

Here's my parent command button class :

Public Class BaseCommandButton
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
    Public Event PreClick As EventHandler
    Public Event PostClick As EventHandler

    Private Sub BaseButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles BaseButton.Click
        RaiseEvent PreClick(sender, e)

        '------------------default code goes here---------------------
        MsgBox("parent click at class level")
        '------------------default code goes here---------------------

        RaiseEvent PostClick(sender, e)
    End Sub
End Class

As you can see I'm raising events both before and after the click takes place so that I can perform code at a subclass level before and after the click takes place.

So, when I drop this commandbutton on my form , I can do the following to provide hooks to the pre and post click methods.

Public Class SubClassedForm
    Inherits BaseClasses.BaseForm

    Public Sub MyPreClickCode(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles BaseCommandButton1.PreClick
        MsgBox("Preclick")
    End Sub

    Public Sub MyPostClickCode(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles BaseCommandButton1.PostClick
        MsgBox("PostClick")
    End Sub

End Class

This works great, but what I'm trying to achieve is to prevent this default parent code

        '------------------default code goes here---------------------
        MsgBox("parent click at class level")
        '------------------default code goes here---------------------

from running if necessary, or maybe override it. For example something happens in my preclick method and I then decide to abort the action etc.

I can create another event at the parent class level and raise this event in the parents click method , but I'm having difficultly placing the default code some place in the parent class.

I'd be really grateful if you could keep my .NET learing curve moving!

All the best, Bernard....