title: Delphi: Managing multiple instances of TFrames
body: <p>In <a href="http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/32047" rel="nofollow">this article</a> there is an explanation of how to use TFrames as an alternative to TTabSheets in a Delphi PageControl.</p>
  
  <p>I've been pondering a similar exercise, which the above doesn't seem to provide the solution for, and for which my solution seems to be overly complicated.</p>
  
  <p>The requirement is for a tabbed interface, where each tab can be one of a number of different designs.  Each design is implemented as a TFrame.</p>
  
  <p>Due to the nature of the application being designed, we may have multiple copies of any frame open at any particular moment (with the content of each tab differing, but not the design) so that the user can compare the details of 2/3 different items at the same time.</p>
  
  <p>For example in one session we may have 3 tabs open, all of Frame design A.
  On another occasion we may have 3 tabs open each of Frame A, B and C.</p>
  
  <p>The design needs to be flexible enough that we can add Frames to the design on request. </p>
  
  <p>At the moment the solution that I have is to have separate TLists managing each type of Frame that we have open, with perhaps a master TList to keep track of the tabs that are open.  As I said, over complicated.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have a suggestion of how this could be handled more simply?</p>