Introduction

TFrameStand and TFormStand are two non-visual components for Delphi FireMonkey (FMX) that show a TFrame (or the content of a TForm) inside your application through a stand: a reusable visual layer that sits between the frame and the control hosting it.

They solve a problem every FMX application meets sooner or later: you split the UI into frames to keep it manageable, and then you write the same plumbing over and over to create them, parent them, fade them in, dim the background, close them on a click outside, free them at the right time. With TFrameStand that plumbing is declared once, in a style, and every frame of the application can use it.

The idea in one picture

  Parent control (a TLayout, the form, a TListView, a TEdit...)
  └── Stand        ← designed in a TStyleBook: background, shadow, effects, animations
      └── container   ← the stand's style element named 'container'
          └── Your TFrame  (or the controls of your TForm, with TFormStand)

• The subject is what you want to show: a TFrame descendant for TFrameStand, a TForm descendant for TFormStand.
• The stand is a style item (a TLayout, TRectangle... with children) looked up by name in the component's StandBook (a TStyleBook). Each time you show a subject, a clone of the stand is created.
• The container is the element of the stand, with StyleName = 'container', that receives the subject. If the stand has no container, the subject goes directly into the stand.
• The parent is the FMX object the stand is added to: the one you pass, or DefaultParent, or the component's owner (usually the form).

Each subject shown gets an info object (TFrameInfo<T> / TFormInfo<T>) that you use to show, hide and close it, and to reach the frame, the stand and the container.

What you get

• Visual consistency: one stand for all dialogs, one for all side panels, one for all toasts. Change the style, change the whole app.
• Animations and effects for free: every TAnimation in the stand named OnShow* runs on show, every OnHide* on hide; hiding waits for the animations to complete. See Animations.
• Common Actions: bind a behaviour to controls by name pattern (Close*, *_cancel...) across all the frames shown by a stand, or bind them to a TActionList. See Common Actions.
• Context injection: frames declare what they need with attributes ([FrameInfo], [Parent], [BeforeShow]...) and get it injected. See Context Injection.
• Responsive substitution: choose the frame class, stand or parent according to the available width. See Responsive Frames.
• TFormStand: the same with TForm descendants, so you can design subjects with Fire UI views and the style preview of the form designer. See TFormStand.

Requirements

• Delphi 10.4 Sydney or later, with FireMonkey. Packages are provided for each version up to Delphi 13 Florence; older Delphi versions can use older releases (see Installation).
• Any FMX platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux (FMXLinux).

Learn more

• Your first stand: a lightbox in ten minutes.
• Core concepts: subjects, stands, containers, parents and infos in detail.
• The CodeRage X session (50 minutes, covers the basics), the blog posts and a full chapter of the book Delphi GUI Programming with FireMonkey.