Each entry in an instance list represents a specific instance of a business object.
In this VLF-WIN example each entry in the circled instance list is an employee:
In this VLF-ONE example each entry in the circled instance list is a place:
The component that manages an instance list for a command handler or filter is called the List Manager.
See Instance List Processing Essentials for an explanation of how filters, instance lists and command handlers interact.
When a list entry is shown on the screen, it needs to have something that makes it easy for the user to identify it.
These visual identifiers often include elements that are very definitely never used as programmatic identifiers such as a name. Most business objects have at least two visual identifiers. See Visual Identifiers.
Each entry in the list must also have something that uniquely identifies it within the list.
For example the employee number A0070 uniquely identifies employee Veronica Brown in the first example. This programmatic identification is required so your filters and command handlers can uniquely identify which instance of a business object they are working with. Many business objects require more than one programmatic identifier to make them unique. See Programmatic Identifiers.
To examine the identifiers used in your Framework application, see Testing Your Assigned Identifiers.
Note that you do not necessarily need to use the standard instance list browser provided by the Framework.
Here is an instance list of employees visualized using a custom (or snap-in) instance list browser:
