Because my actual problem domain is complex*, I'm going to use Invoices and Line Items as an example. An Invoice business object deals with everything Invoice, and a LineItems business object performs likewise. LineItems is useful by itself. Invoices is also useful by itself. Invoices often, but not always, uses a LineItems object - Total cost of an invoice is a function on Invoice, but can only be performed by summing LineItems.

The framework makes it fairly easy to drop a new bizobj on a form and hook it into the chain, but running the containership heirarchy is sometimes problematic. And, it means some functions wouldn't work from a programmatic interface, as they might not have the child object required. That would be a nice ability to have.

Is there an easy way to have the child objects available when I want them, without dragging them around all the time? Instantiation time and object count are a concern.

Chris.

*Complex: Three or four "children" business objects, sometimes two or three layers deep. And no, it doesn't simplify to smaller trees gracefully.