Hi Jerry -

>> The VFP9 beta supports "Multiple Selection" in the report designer.
>> However, the only things that can be set for all the objects that
>> are selected are the "Print When" and the "Protection" level.
>>
>> Why can't other properties such as the Font or Text alignment be
>> set using this new "Multiple Selection" dialog?

As you have observed, the format menu is still available and allows you to set a specific property on multiple objects.

>> What is the purpose of the "Multiple Selection" dialog when it
>> doesn't allow you to set properties that you could in previous
>> version of VFP using the Format menu.

If you feel strongly about this, I recommend that you submit an ER to Microsoft suggesting that, as the multiple selection dialog is has no purpose, it should be removed from the product. :-)

>> It seems inconsistent.

The word you are looking for is, perhaps, "incomplete". I would have to agree with you. I am sure that, if the development team had more time and budget to develop and test this particular feature, they would have extended it and made more properties available for multiple-selection setting. Perhaps this will happen in the SP1 time frame.

As it is, I think the reasoning for - at minimum - allowing the protection flags to be set on multiple selected report elements was that people were most likely to be wanting to protect existing reports for user-editing, and this would reduce the tedium of setting them individually. It would not be such a big deal for new reports, where you are setting all the other properties on an individual object anyway.

Any properties above protection flags in the multi-selection dialog is just "jam" as far as I can see.

And, as Fred has pointed out, you have the source code so you can make the change yourself. A word of warning, though - having hacked around in the FRX format myself quite a bit, I have to say, it is very easy to put the FRX into an inconsistent, unrunable state, so be careful!

regards,
- Colin