I use to work with PADs and I was able to define alternate patterns (footprints) attached to one schematic symbol. I searched the forums and could not find anything on this subject. I was wondering if this was possible in DipTrace. I would like to have this option for alternate parts and mounting configurations.

I don't believe this is possible. A component has one pattern attached. Of course you can always go in and assign a new one - on a per part basis - but DipTrace offers no help in keeping a list of "compatible" footprints for a specific component. I think it would be a nice feature to have.

I think the idea right now is to have a *accurate* components so you BOM matches 100%, multiple footprints per component might not fit too well with this, unless it incorporated some way of changing the part names (usually suffixes) depending on the footprint selected.

I'm really not that experienced in all this, so please correct me if I'm wrong

Multiple patterns for a single component is one of the feature still missing from Diptrace.
I requested this some time ago. It will definitely make the library smaller & less duplicate components that only differ in patterns or package.

Any updates on this Alex?

Multiple patterns for a component won't be implemented in near future. This update requires changing of library structure and we can't spend a lot of time for this.