I have a Form which has data aware controls bound to datasets in a datamodule. I need to create additional instances of both the form and datamodule in the same application.
I deleted the global variable that was automatically created when the data module was first added to the project. To my delight, controls in the designer could still be bound to datasets in the data module without this global variable. I'm assuming the IDE is parsing the dfm of the datamodule so the designer can still "see" the datamodule. (without the data module loaded in the IDE the list of data sources is empty)
When I create two instances of the form and two instances of the datamodule at runtime both instances of the form appear to be bound to only the first data module that was created. Inspecting the second instance of the data module reveals that the Name property has a number suffix that wasn't there at design time.
The form depends on a lot of datasets in the data module. Is there an easier way to bind the second form instance to the second data module's datasets without resorting to hand coded SomeControl.DataSource := Module2.dsSomeData for every single control?
I'm open to alternative suggestions as well. One solution would be to move the datasets to the form itself. Still it seems a shame if design time data binding only works on singletons.
Take a look at this question:
separate dataset instances using datamodules in delphi
Basically the answer is to create your DataModule, then your Form, then set the name of the created DataModule to an empty string. That will let the initial data binding happen but prevent other forms from seeing that Module.
In addition the next version that is created will still have the original name (no need for the numeric suffix).