The majority of database users interact with database systems by manipulating forms. This paper discusses the fundamentals underlying forms and considers low these mechanisms affect the behavior of forms We then review the forms supported by commercial products. None of the packages reviewed provide all of the features that make up an ideal form. We propose a new design that overcomes many of the limitations observed in the packages currently available. The new system is event- driven, object-oriented, supports a hierachy of composite blocks, and is primarily modeless. Forms are defined as top-level blocks and blocks can be either atomic or composite structures with methods directly included in their definition. Messages are passed among form objects. Defining forms with the proposed system is simple because from definitions are similar to type declarations in Pascal.