Skip to content

Presentation (View DSL)

Declare list, form, kanban, and search views in XML. The React web client renders them — no per-view component code, no JSX.

<!-- src/domains/blog/post/views/post_views.xml -->
<list model="blog.post">
    <field name="title"/>
    <field name="published"/>
    <field name="created_at_utc" widget="datetime"/>
</list>

<form model="blog.post">
    <header>
        <button name="publish" string="Publish" type="object"
                attrs="{'invisible': [('published','=',True)]}"/>
        <field name="state" widget="statusbar"/>
    </header>
    <sheet>
        <group>
            <field name="title"/>
            <field name="published"/>
        </group>
        <notebook>
            <page string="Body">
                <field name="body" widget="text"/>
            </page>
        </notebook>
    </sheet>
    <chatter/>
</form>

Declare the file in __manifest__.py under data: — the loader registers the views at boot and the web client picks them up.

What you get

  • Four view types: <list>, <form>, <kanban>, <search>.
  • DSL elements: <field>, <header>, <sheet>, <group>, <notebook>/<page>, <button>, <chatter>, <statusbar>.
  • Widgets for fields: text, email, phone, currency, monetary, datetime, date, boolean, selection, many2one, one2many, many2many, progress, radio, tags, image, binary, html, statusbar.
  • Domain filter attrs: attrs="{'invisible': [...], 'readonly': [...]}" to conditionally hide / lock fields.
  • Action wiring: <button name="cmd_name" type="object"> calls a command on the record.
  • Auto-generation for missing views: the engine produces a default list / form when a model has none registered.
  • ViewRegistry — runtime view lookup keyed by model + view type.
  • DslParser — parses XML into a RenderPlan dict consumed by the React client.

How to use it

Register a view in the manifest

# src/domains/blog/post/__manifest__.py
{
    "name": "Blog Post",
    "depends": ["base"],
    "data": [
        "views/post_views.xml",
    ],
}

Add a search view

<search model="blog.post">
    <filter name="published"   string="Published"
            domain="[('published','=',True)]"/>
    <filter name="my_drafts"   string="My Drafts"
            domain="[('author_id','=',$principal.user_id), ('published','=',False)]"/>
    <group_by name="author_id" string="By Author"/>
</search>

The web client renders filter pills + a groupby dropdown on every list and kanban automatically.

Add a kanban view

<kanban model="blog.post" group_by="state">
    <field name="title"/>
    <field name="author_id"/>
    <templates>
        <t t-name="card">
            <div class="card">
                <strong><field name="title"/></strong>
                <small><field name="author_id"/></small>
            </div>
        </t>
    </templates>
</kanban>

Conditionally hide a field

<field name="approver_id"
       attrs="{'invisible': [('state','!=','pending')]}"/>

The expression is evaluated client-side against the current form values.

Override another module's view

Use <extend ref="..."> to add / replace nodes:

<extend ref="base.res_partner_form">
    <xpath expr="//field[@name='email']" position="after">
        <field name="loyalty_tier"/>
    </xpath>
</extend>

Reference

  • Source: src/ede/foundation/presentation/
  • DslParser: src/ede/core/services/presentation/dsl/parser.py
  • ViewRegistry: src/ede/core/services/presentation/view_registry.py
  • Architecture: Presentation DSL.