>>> If you specifically only want to use one child at a time it is more proper to open them as modal dialogue boxes rather than MDI children.<<<

Actually, this is exactly what I should be doing. Can I change their properties to make them into modal dialogue boxes, or do I need to just start over and create them that way from scratch. I want them to be maximised all the time, with only one showing at any given time. I'm pretty sure the tree is docked to the lefthand side of the page, although I haven't really checked for that yet. I'll look into that as well. Thanks for the ideas. I'll let you know.

And yes, I think there might be some sort of bug in what I'm trying to do. The fact is, that one of the forms, the "inner-most" one (the 5th one in, on the tree) comes up without the control boxes, etc. It behaves just like the other is all other ways, and I can find nothing in the code to set it apart from them, but it doesn't have the open/close/resize buttons on it. Go figure....

Thanks again.

john