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Form Reference is a special container used for simplified design and runtime optimization. The same behavior can be achieved via tabless tabpanel, but form reference has optimized display because all elements are part of the same form, taking away the overhead of tabpanel and loading of another form. The Form Reference element can be placed on any form, having location and size. The Form Reference contains a property referencing a form. At runtime, the referenced form will be displayed instead of Form Reference element.

Form Reference can only contain a special type of form, marked as reference form. This form shouldn't have scripting, events or commands. These are not used at runtime. The elements from reference forms can have events, as long as the method is not in reference form scope. The reference form should have the same datasource (foundset) as the one where Form Reference element is placed. 

At runtime, the elements from Form Reference (coming from reference form), can be used just as any other form elements, those are actually copied to the main form.