Sorry if I was too vague for you, I assumed if someone was familiar with
doing
what I was doing they would know what I was talking about.

the index is simply an integer like would be the index into the columns of a
DataGridView,
there is also a row index of course but thats easy its just a plain index
into an array.

the column index needs to refer to a title for the colum headers,
and to the particular data field of the class

the project is involved theres so much info i could give out
its hard to know where to draw the line.

I agree whole hartedly about reflection thats why I asked first,
having used it once before.

I have however come up with a solution wich solves my
worries about making absolutly sure the title/read/write all apply to the
same field.

the refererence is 100% certain the same for read/write,
and the title is on the same line so cant go too far wrong.
I havnt figured out how to actually do the write/set part yet
at least not with a function template.

public enum Get
{
   Get,
   Set,
   Title
}

//does the actual get/set/title
public string GetSet<T>(string title, ref T field, string value, Get get)
{
   if (get == Get.Title)
       return title;
   if (get == Get.Get)
       return field.ToString();
   if (get == Get.Set)
   {
       //need to come up with a way to read the text value in.
       throw new Exception("The method or operation is not implemented.");
   }
   return null;
}

//looks up the relavant field/class data member
public override String FieldGet(int index, String value, Get get)
{
   switch (index)
   {
       case 0: return FindIndex().ToString();
       case 1: return GetSet("Org.X", ref surfProp.Origin.X, value, get);
       case 2: return GetSet("Org.Y", ref surfProp.Origin.Y, value, get);
       case 3: return GetSet("Org.Z", ref surfProp.Origin.Z, value, get);
       default: return null;
   }
}

//the actual data class
public class Surface  //snipet of one of many much larger classes
{
   public Vector3 Origin; //struct of 3 floats x,y,z
}

//the function wich fills in the datagrid rows and columns
public void FillGrid(DataGridView grid, List<Surface> surfaces)
{
   int i;
   String result;
   grid.Columns.Clear(); ///assume surfaces isnt empty
   for (i = 0; (result= surfaces[0].FieldGet(i, null, Get.Title)) != null;
i++)
       grid.Columns.Add(result, result);
   String[] row = new String[i];
   grid.Rows.Clear();
   foreach (Surface surf in surfaces)
   {
       for (i = 0; (result= surf.FieldGet(i, null, Get.Get)) != null; i++)
           row[i]=result;
       grid.Rows.Add(row);
   }
}

this worked at least before I cut out the seemingly irrelavent stuff