Private component fields nested in Delphi frames

Question

Here is a quick comparison of Delphi components and frames and at the end is my question.

Advantages of Delphi components:

• They are encapsulated well. A software that uses components can access only public and published properties of components.
• All their inner event handlers are available at parent form's design time.

Disadvantages of Delphi components:

• They need to be installed with some package
• The package is shared between multiple applications even if the components inside are application-specific

Advantages of Delphi frames:

• They could be placed on a form just like components
• Their published properties also can be adjusted in a form
• They are in-app only and aren't available for the rest of apps which they don't belong to
• They are quickly available. No need to install.

Disadvantages of Delphi frames:

• All of their inner components are directly available in a parent form. If I move the components from published section, design-time customizations are broken in the frame designer too.
• If I override the Resize method in a frame all the arrangements are available at run-time only. No arrangements at design-time are made.
• If I introduce a new published property, it is not available in object inspector.

What I would like to have is a symbiotic thing:

• Good encapsulation. None of the inner components is available from the parent form, but all their inner components are fully functional either at run-time or at their design-time.
• Quick availability. No need to install.
• In-app only. No sharing with other apps.
• Their published properties can be adjusted in a form
• All the method overrides (especially Resize method) are available at design-time.

Could you suggest a thing that fulfills these requirements? Or may be some surprising method to work with frames I didn't know about?

It shouldn't be necessarily a frame or a component. If some of other VCL classes fulfills these requirements, I would gratefully accept it.

Answer 1

If its properties have to be editable in the designer the object has to be a descendant of TComponent. TFrame actually is a descendant of TComponent.

Unfortunately, object inspector seems to use structure information from design-time packages only. Thus, you have to compile a design-time package for your custom published properties to show in object inspector. But that strikes your requirement of Quick availability.