A componentizing object designer is used to define a componentization of visual forms and other object-oriented technologies. The componentized object designer includes a set of tightly integrated protocols enabling Component Object Model (COM) objects to replace standard built-in visual form and other objects. The componentized object designer allows the design-time object and the run-time object to differ in implementation. The componentized object designer allows class identifiers for the run-time objects which are different than design-time objects. With a different class identifier, the run-time object can be saved as an object which is radically different from the design-time object. This enables the run-time object to be stored in a different object library than the design-time object. The componentized object designer allows for different persistence formats to be saved for run-time objects. The persistence formats for the run-time objects can be significantly smaller in size compared to the original design-time objects. This is important when the run-time object needs to be downloaded over a computer network like the Internet or an intranet.