How else could it be done though? Let's say MS Word for instance... if I bring up a modal dialogbox in Word, the toolbars do not respond. The only thing that I can think of that can be done is to create a modal preview form class in the frxpreview.vcx that has the buttons/functionality of the toolbar at the top of the form (so there is no toolbar) and then shows the preview below that on the same form. Any other ideas?

Consider REPORT FORM ... PREVIEW from the command window. That's a modal command. The system toolbar and menu are disabled, but the preview windows has its own toolbar available, part of the modal state. It should work the same way inside a topform app window, but it doesn't. Any SCX or VCX form class with its own toolbar would experience this bug in VFP9.

Now, whether or not this conforms to standard windows UI guidelines and expected behavior, I don't know!

Given the current behavior, and given that the right-click menu is available regardless, the easiest hack might be to just not show the preview toolbar when it is going to be unavailable anyway. It's not ideal.

The real solution is to build a preview window that doesn't have a separate toolbar, but - as you describe, and like IE's or OneNote's Print Preview windows, has integrated controls. Given the difficulty with scrolling objects around a vfp form, OneNote's model would be easier to implement I would think.

I really wish Microsoft hadn't decided to duplicate the VFP8,6,7 preview experience as closely as they did in VFP9. Basically, they get users yelling at them whatever they do *sigh*.

- Colin