thanks a million Jason... last question for today (I promise!)
in the backend that drives the product page, I have a product_results.php page which allows the user to reorder the items by category (you pointed me in the right ddirection for creating the sort facility). The problem is that it also has an update order function on the page and I want to hide that but only if the user has applied a filter... when they are viewing the complete product list I wnt them to be able to re-roder items
have attached the page
cheers
Jamie