how to load delphi tframe from dll to delphi application

Question

i have created a dll with tframe . how can i load it inside my application, i dont like to use bpls , i only want to destribute exe and dlls with my app

Answer 1

Since a BPL is a DLL, go the BPL way: much easier.

Answer 2

It can be done but it's a hell of a job to get it working without errors or memory problems. To make matters worse, you will be using two VCL's in your application, one in your executable and another in the DLL. Your frame would try to refer to the DLL VCL, which would provide very different information than the EXE VCL. Especially when checking the global Screen and Application variables.
Still, a frame is nothing more than a special window control, just like forms. You could export a function from your DLL which would return a value of type TFrame. Your application would be able to call this function and thus create the frame, use it in any way it uses all other frames. It won't have any specific information about additional functionality within your frame, though.
The next thing you'd have to work on is to synchronize the data between the EXE and the DLL that is VCL related. That's not very pretty. Plus, you will probably have some issues when using the tab key to tab through the controls on your screen, since the tab key won't be able to tab outside the frame. And you will notice a few more oddities like this.
I have worked on a simple application that used frames this way. Me, and two others spent two months getting some working solution, which did work reasonable well without memory leaks and other troubles. Before we started that project, it just seemed like a good idea. Afterwards, we decided that it didn't turn out to be the solution we'd wanted so we merged the code of the DLL's with the code of the executable to just create one executable. It was better that way.
We did use another alternative, though. We started using a webbrowser component in the mainform. The DLL would contain a HTML page, nicely formatted, and a bunch of methods that would be called when certain specific functions were used. We had this working in a simple test application with good results but then the company went chapter 11... My employer went dead broke since a deal with some customer misfired badly, leaving the company with some huge debts. And thus an interesting project ended...