The vSphere Web Client SDK contains a template that you can use to create a standard Summary tab view for your custom object.

The standard Summary tab view contains a header view displayed at the top of the main workspace, and an extension point for the portlet views under the header view. The extension point that the template creates for portlet views is named <namespace>.summarySectionViews.

To use the standard Summary tab template, you must create an instance of the template in your plugin.xml manifest file by using the <templateInstance> element. The Summary tab template definition must appear after the definition for the standard object workspace.

The <templateId> element contains the identifier of the template to create. To use the standard Summary tab template included with the vSphere Web Client SDK, this identifier must be vsphere.core.inventory.summaryViewTemplate. To use the summaryViewTemplate, you must define a namespace variable and a summaryHeaderView variable.

Namespace

The value you supply for the namespace variable must match the namespace for the parent object workspace of the Summary tab. The Summary tab created by the Summary tab template uses the extension point <namespace>.summaryViews, as defined by the object workspace template. The Summary tab template also creates the extension point <namespace>.summarySectionViews. You can use the <namespace>.summarySectionViews extension point to add portlet data views to your custom object Summary tab.

Summary Header View

You use the summaryHeaderView variable to specify the data view that appears at the top of the Summary tab. The value you supply for the summaryHeaderView variable must be the fully qualified class name for an MXML data view class in your extension. If you omit the summaryHeaderView variable, no header appears in the Summary tab, and the main workspace displays the portlet data views you create at the <namespace>.summarySectionViews extension point, if any.

Adding Portlets to the Summary Tab

After you create a Summary tab for your custom object workspace by using the Summary tab template, you can add portlet data views to the Summary tab. You create the portlet data views at the <namespace>.summarySectionViews extension point that the template creates, in the same way that you do for any other extension point in the virtual infrastructure. For more information about defining data view extensions, see Properties of the ViewSpec Extension Object.

Example: Instantiating the Summary Tab Template

The following example instantiates the Summary tab template for a custom object called Rack. The <templateInstance> element contains an id attribute, which is a unique identifier of your choice. 

<!-- Object Workspace Template for Rack -->
<templateInstance id="com.vmware.samples.rack.viewTemplateInstance">
    <templateId>vsphere.core.inventory.objectViewTemplate</templateId>
    <variable name="namespace" value="com.vmware.samples.rack"/>
    <variable name="objectType" value="samples:Rack"/>
</templateInstance>
 
<!-- Summary Tab Template for Rack -->
<templateInstance id="com.vmware.samples.chassis.summaryViewTemplateInstance">
    <templateId>vsphere.core.inventory.summaryViewTemplate</templateId>
    <variable name="namespace" value="com.vmware.samples.rack"/>
    <variable name="summaryHeaderView" value="com.vmware.samples.rack.views.RackSummaryView"/>
</templateInstance>