I'm looking for options/opinions here. We're planning to develop using form classes rather than forms. However, there is some division in our group about how we should implement their use.

In one sense, we'll be working in the same fashion as the Mere Mortals framework; we'll have a small library of form classes and each new program will subclass one or more of those form classes.

No problems so far. The real division comes in trying to decide, do we paint all the fields on our form class using the class designer or do we store information about positioning in a table and programatically place things on the screen when they're needed. In other words, if we have a form with 2 pages (in a page frame) -- 1 page for a grid view and the other for a data entry view -- and the user only comes in to look at the grid view, we would never have to instantiate the objects on the second page.

So, the issue arrises, where is the balance between speed of instantiating form classes and the ease of development. Not being able to lay things out visually is a real pain and yet doing so can slow the instantiation of a form down considerably ... especially when you're still supporting some slow Win95 machines.

Is there any kind of a middle ground? Something that will allow you the visual layout for development but still keep the instantiation of a form class nice and snappy?

Thanks for whatever advice you can offer!

Rodd