Building a Website¶
Waarschuwing
This guide assumes basic knowledge of Python
This guide assumes an installed Odoo
Creating a basic module¶
In Odoo, tasks are performed by creating modules.
Modules customize the behavior of an Odoo installation, either by adding new behaviors or by altering existing ones (including behaviors added by other modules).
Odoo’s scaffolding can setup a basic module. To quickly get started simply invoke:
$ ./odoo-bin scaffold Academy my-modules
This will automatically create a my-modules
module directory with an
academy
module inside. The directory can be an existing module directory
if you want, but the module name must be unique within the directory.
A demonstration module¶
We have a “complete” module ready for installation.
Although it does absolutely nothing we can install it:
start the Odoo server
$ ./odoo-bin --addons-path addons,my-modules
go to http://localhost:8069
create a new database including demonstration data
to go
in the top-right corner remove the Installed filter and search for academy
click the Install button for the Academy module
To the browser¶
Controllers interpret browser requests and send data back.
Add a simple controller and ensure it is imported by __init__.py
(so
Odoo can find it):
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from odoo import http
class Academy(http.Controller):
@http.route('/academy/academy/', auth='public')
def index(self, **kw):
return "Hello, world"
Shut down your server (^C) then restart it:
$ ./odoo-bin --addons-path addons,my-modules
and open a page to http://localhost:8069/academy/academy/, you should see your “page” appear:
Templates¶
Generating HTML in Python isn’t very pleasant.
The usual solution is templates, pseudo-documents with placeholders and display logic. Odoo allows any Python templating system, but provides its own QWeb templating system which integrates with other features.
Create a template and ensure the template file is registered in the
__manifest__.py
manifest, and alter the controller to use our template:
class Academy(http.Controller):
@http.route('/academy/academy/', auth='public')
def index(self, **kw):
return http.request.render('academy.index', {
'teachers': ["Diana Padilla", "Jody Caroll", "Lester Vaughn"],
})
<odoo>
<template id="index">
<title>Academy</title>
<t t-foreach="teachers" t-as="teacher">
<p><t t-esc="teacher"/></p>
</t>
</template>
</odoo>
The templates iterates (t-foreach
) on all the teachers (passed through the
template context), and prints each teacher in its own paragraph.
Finally restart Odoo and update the module’s data (to install the template) by going to Upgrade.
and clickingTip
Alternatively, Odoo can be restarted and update modules at
the same time
:
$ odoo-bin --addons-path addons,my-modules -d academy -u academy
Going to http://localhost:8069/academy/academy/ should now result in:
Storing data in Odoo¶
Odoo models map to database tables.
In the previous section we just displayed a list of string entered statically in the Python code. This doesn’t allow modifications or persistent storage so we’ll now move our data to the database.
Defining the data model¶
Define a teacher model, and ensure it is imported from __init__.py
so it
is correctly loaded:
from odoo import models, fields, api
class Teachers(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.teachers'
name = fields.Char()
Then setup basic access control for the model and add them to the manifest:
# always loaded
'data': [
'security/ir.model.access.csv',
'templates.xml',
],
id,name,model_id:id,group_id:id,perm_read,perm_write,perm_create,perm_unlink
access_academy_teachers,access_academy_teachers,model_academy_teachers,,1,0,0,0
this simply gives read access (perm_read
) to all users (group_id:id
left empty).
Notitie
Data files (XML or CSV) must be added to the
module manifest, Python files (models or controllers) don’t but have to
be imported from __init__.py
(directly or indirectly)
Waarschuwing
the administrator user bypasses access control, they have access to all models even if not given access
Demonstration data¶
The second step is to add some demonstration data to the system so it’s
possible to test it easily. This is done by adding a demo
data file, which must be linked from the manifest:
<odoo>
<record id="padilla" model="academy.teachers">
<field name="name">Diana Padilla</field>
</record>
<record id="carroll" model="academy.teachers">
<field name="name">Jody Carroll</field>
</record>
<record id="vaughn" model="academy.teachers">
<field name="name">Lester Vaughn</field>
</record>
</odoo>
Tip
Data files can be used for demo and non-demo data. Demo data are only loaded in “demonstration mode” and can be used for flow testing and demonstration, non-demo data are always loaded and used as initial system setup.
In this case we’re using demonstration data because an actual user of the system would want to input or import their own teachers list, this list is only useful for testing.
Accessing the data¶
The last step is to alter model and template to use our demonstration data:
fetch the records from the database instead of having a static list
Because
search()
returns a set of records matching the filter (“all records” here), alter the template to print each teacher’sname
class Academy(http.Controller):
@http.route('/academy/academy/', auth='public')
def index(self, **kw):
Teachers = http.request.env['academy.teachers']
return http.request.render('academy.index', {
'teachers': Teachers.search([])
})
<odoo>
<template id="index">
<title>Academy</title>
<t t-foreach="teachers" t-as="teacher">
<p><t t-esc="teacher.id"/> <t t-esc="teacher.name"/></p>
</t>
</template>
</odoo>
Restart the server and update the module (in order to update the manifest and templates and load the demo file) then navigate to http://localhost:8069/academy/academy/. The page should look slightly different: names should simply be prefixed by a number (the database identifier for the teacher).
Website support¶
Odoo bundles a module dedicated to building websites.
So far we’ve used controllers fairly directly, but Odoo 8 added deeper
integration and a few other services (e.g. default styling, theming) via the
website
module.
first, add
website
as a dependency toacademy
then add the
website=True
flag on the controller, this sets up a few new variables on the request object and allows using the website layout in our templateuse the website layout in the template
'version': '0.1',
# any module necessary for this one to work correctly
'depends': ['website'],
# always loaded
'data': [
class Academy(http.Controller):
@http.route('/academy/academy/', auth='public', website=True)
def index(self, **kw):
Teachers = http.request.env['academy.teachers']
return http.request.render('academy.index', {
'teachers': Teachers.search([])
})
<odoo>
<template id="index">
<t t-call="website.layout">
<t t-set="title">Academy</t>
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<t t-foreach="teachers" t-as="teacher">
<p><t t-esc="teacher.id"/> <t t-esc="teacher.name"/></p>
</t>
</div>
</div>
</t>
</template>
</odoo>
After restarting the server while updating the module (in order to update the manifest and template) access http://localhost:8069/academy/academy/ should yield a nicer looking page with branding and a number of built-in page elements (top-level menu, footer, …)
The website layout also provides support for editing tools: click
Sign In (in the top-right), fill the credentials in (admin
/
admin
by default) then click Log In.
You’re now in Odoo “proper”: the administrative interface. For now click on the Website menu item (top-left corner.
We’re back in the website but as an administrator, with access to advanced editing features provided by the website support:
a template code editor (
) where you can see and edit all templates used for the current pagethe Edit button in the top-left switches to “editing mode” where blocks (snippets) and rich text editing are available
a number of other features such as mobile preview or SEO
URLs and routing¶
Controller methods are associated with routes via the
route()
decorator which takes a routing string and a
number of attributes to customise its behavior or security.
We’ve seen a “literal” routing string, which matches a URL section exactly, but routing strings can also use converter patterns which match bits of URLs and make those available as local variables. For instance we can create a new controller method which takes a bit of URL and prints it out:
# New route
@http.route('/academy/<name>/', auth='public', website=True)
def teacher(self, name):
return '<h1>{}</h1>'.format(name)
restart Odoo, access http://localhost:8069/academy/Alice/ and http://localhost:8069/academy/Bob/ and see the difference.
As the name indicates, converter patterns don’t just do extraction, they also do validation and conversion, so we can change the new controller to only accept integers:
@http.route('/academy/<int:id>/', auth='public', website=True)
def teacher(self, id):
return '<h1>{} ({})</h1>'.format(id, type(id).__name__)
Restart Odoo, access http://localhost:8069/academy/2, note how the old value was a string, but the new one was converted to an integers. Try accessing http://localhost:8069/academy/Carol/ and note that the page was not found: since “Carol” is not an integer, the route was ignored and no route could be found.
Odoo provides an additional converter called model
which provides records
directly when given their id. Let’s use this to create a generic page for
teacher biographies:
@http.route('/academy/<model("academy.teachers"):teacher>/', auth='public', website=True)
def teacher(self, teacher):
return http.request.render('academy.biography', {
'person': teacher
})
<template id="biography">
<t t-call="website.layout">
<t t-set="title">Academy</t>
<div class="oe_structure"/>
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3><t t-esc="person.name"/></h3>
</div>
</div>
<div class="oe_structure"/>
</t>
</template>
then change the list of model to link to our new controller:
<template id="index">
<t t-call="website.layout">
<t t-set="title">Academy</t>
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<t t-foreach="teachers" t-as="teacher">
<p>
<a t-attf-href="/academy/{{ slug(teacher) }}">
<t t-esc="teacher.name"/></a>
</p>
</t>
</div>
</div>
</t>
</template>
Restart Odoo and upgrade the module, then you can visit each teacher’s page. As an exercise, try adding blocks to a teacher’s page to write a biography, then go to another teacher’s page and so forth. You will discover, that your biography is shared between all teachers, because blocks are added to the template, and the biography template is shared between all teachers, when one page is edited they’re all edited at the same time.
Field editing¶
Data which is specific to a record should be saved on that record, so let us add a new biography field to our teachers:
class Teachers(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.teachers'
name = fields.Char()
biography = fields.Html()
<template id="biography">
<t t-call="website.layout">
<t t-set="title">Academy</t>
<div class="oe_structure"/>
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3><t t-esc="person.name"/></h3>
<div><t t-esc="person.biography"/></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="oe_structure"/>
</t>
</template>
Restart Odoo and update the views, reload the teacher’s page and… the field is invisible since it contains nothing.
For record fields, templates can use a special t-field
directive which
allows editing the field content from the website using field-specific
interfaces. Change the person template to use t-field
:
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3 t-field="person.name"/>
<div t-field="person.biography"/>
</div>
</div>
Restart Odoo and upgrade the module, there is now a placeholder under the
teacher’s name and a new zone for blocks in Edit mode. Content
dropped there is stored in the corresponding teacher’s biography
field, and
thus specific to that teacher.
The teacher’s name is also editable, and when saved the change is visible on the index page.
t-field
can also take formatting options which depend on the exact field.
For instance if we display the modification date for a teacher’s record:
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3 t-field="person.name"/>
<p>Last modified: <i t-field="person.write_date"/></p>
<div t-field="person.biography"/>
</div>
</div>
it is displayed in a very “computery” manner and hard to read, but we could ask for a human-readable version:
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3 t-field="person.name"/>
<p>Last modified: <i t-field="person.write_date" t-options='{"format": "long"}'/></p>
<div t-field="person.biography"/>
</div>
</div>
or a relative display:
<div class="oe_structure">
<div class="container">
<h3 t-field="person.name"/>
<p>Last modified: <i t-field="person.write_date" t-options='{"widget": "relative"}'/></p>
<div t-field="person.biography"/>
</div>
</div>
Administration and ERP integration¶
A brief and incomplete introduction to the Odoo administration¶
The Odoo administration was briefly seen during the website support section. We can go back to it using in the menu (or Sign In if you’re signed out).
The conceptual structure of the Odoo backend is simple:
first are menus, a tree (menus can have sub-menus) of records. Menus without children map to…
actions. Actions have various types: links, reports, code which Odoo should execute or data display. Data display actions are called window actions, and tell Odoo to display a given model according to a set of views…
a view has a type, a broad category to which it corresponds (a list, a graph, a calendar) and an architecture which customises the way the model is displayed inside the view.
Editing in the Odoo administration¶
By default, an Odoo model is essentially invisible to a user. To make it visible it must be available through an action, which itself needs to be reachable, generally through a menu.
Let’s create a menu for our model:
# always loaded
'data': [
'security/ir.model.access.csv',
'templates.xml',
'views.xml',
],
<odoo>
<record id="action_academy_teachers" model="ir.actions.act_window">
<field name="name">Academy teachers</field>
<field name="res_model">academy.teachers</field>
</record>
<menuitem sequence="0" id="menu_academy" name="Academy"/>
<menuitem id="menu_academy_content" parent="menu_academy"
name="Academy Content"/>
<menuitem id="menu_academy_content_teachers"
parent="menu_academy_content"
action="action_academy_teachers"/>
</odoo>
then accessing http://localhost:8069/web/ in the top left should be a menu Academy, which is selected by default, as it is the first menu, and having opened a listing of teachers. From the listing it is possible to Create new teacher records, and to switch to the “form” by-record view.
If there is no definition of how to present records (a
view) Odoo will automatically create a basic one
on-the-fly. In our case it works for the “list” view for now (only displays
the teacher’s name) but in the “form” view the HTML biography
field is
displayed side-by-side with the name
field and not given enough space.
Let’s define a custom form view to make viewing and editing teacher records
a better experience:
<record id="academy_teacher_form" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy teachers: form</field>
<field name="model">academy.teachers</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<form>
<sheet>
<field name="name"/>
<field name="biography"/>
</sheet>
</form>
</field>
</record>
Relations between models¶
We have seen a pair of “basic” fields stored directly in the record. There are a number of basic fields. The second broad categories of fields are relational and used to link records to one another (within a model or across models).
For demonstration, let’s create a courses model. Each course should have a
teacher
field, linking to a single teacher record, but each teacher can
teach many courses:
class Courses(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.courses'
name = fields.Char()
teacher_id = fields.Many2one('academy.teachers', string="Teacher")
id,name,model_id:id,group_id:id,perm_read,perm_write,perm_create,perm_unlink
access_academy_teachers,access_academy_teachers,model_academy_teachers,,1,0,0,0
access_academy_courses,access_academy_courses,model_academy_courses,,1,0,0,0
let’s also add views so we can see and edit a course’s teacher:
<record id="action_academy_courses" model="ir.actions.act_window">
<field name="name">Academy courses</field>
<field name="res_model">academy.courses</field>
</record>
<record id="academy_course_search" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy courses: search</field>
<field name="model">academy.courses</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<search>
<field name="name"/>
<field name="teacher_id"/>
</search>
</field>
</record>
<record id="academy_course_list" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy courses: list</field>
<field name="model">academy.courses</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<tree string="Courses">
<field name="name"/>
<field name="teacher_id"/>
</tree>
</field>
</record>
<record id="academy_course_form" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy courses: form</field>
<field name="model">academy.courses</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<form>
<sheet>
<field name="name"/>
<field name="teacher_id"/>
</sheet>
</form>
</field>
</record>
<menuitem sequence="0" id="menu_academy" name="Academy"/>
<menuitem id="menu_academy_content" parent="menu_academy"
name="Academy Content"/>
<menuitem id="menu_academy_content_courses"
parent="menu_academy_content"
action="action_academy_courses"/>
<menuitem id="menu_academy_content_teachers"
parent="menu_academy_content"
action="action_academy_teachers"/>
It should also be possible to create new courses directly from a teacher’s
page, or to see all the courses they teach, so add
the inverse relationship
to the teachers
model:
class Teachers(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.teachers'
name = fields.Char()
biography = fields.Html()
course_ids = fields.One2many('academy.courses', 'teacher_id', string="Courses")
class Courses(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.courses'
name = fields.Char()
teacher_id = fields.Many2one('academy.teachers', string="Teacher")
<record id="academy_teacher_form" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy teachers: form</field>
<field name="model">academy.teachers</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<form>
<sheet>
<field name="name"/>
<field name="biography"/>
<field name="course_ids">
<tree Sstring="Courses" editable="bottom">
<field name="name"/>
</tree>
</field>
</sheet>
</form>
</field>
</record>
Discussions and notifications¶
Odoo provides technical models, which don’t directly fulfill business needs but which add capabilities to business objects without having to build them by hand.
One of these is the Chatter system, part of Odoo’s email and messaging
system, which can add notifications and discussion threads to any model.
The model simply has to _inherit
mail.thread
, and add the message_ids
field to its form view to display
the discussion thread. Discussion threads are per-record.
For our academy, it makes sense to allow discussing courses to handle e.g. scheduling changes or discussions between teachers and assistants:
'version': '0.1',
# any module necessary for this one to work correctly
'depends': ['website', 'mail'],
# always loaded
'data': [
class Courses(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.courses'
_inherit = 'mail.thread'
name = fields.Char()
teacher_id = fields.Many2one('academy.teachers', string="Teacher")
<record id="academy_course_form" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="name">Academy courses: form</field>
<field name="model">academy.courses</field>
<field name="arch" type="xml">
<form>
<sheet>
<field name="name"/>
<field name="teacher_id"/>
</sheet>
<div class="oe_chatter">
<field name="message_follower_ids" widget="mail_followers"/>
<field name="message_ids" widget="mail_thread"/>
</div>
</form>
</field>
</record>
At the bottom of each course form, there is now a discussion thread and the possibility for users of the system to leave messages and follow or unfollow discussions linked to specific courses.
Selling courses¶
Odoo also provides business models which allow using or opting in business
needs more directly. For instance the website_sale
module sets up an
e-commerce site based on the products in the Odoo system. We can easily make
course subscriptions sellable by making our courses specific kinds of
products.
Rather than the previous classical inheritance, this means replacing our course model by the product model, and extending products in-place (to add anything we need to it).
First of all we need to add a dependency on website_sale
so we get both
products (via sale
) and the ecommerce interface:
'version': '0.1',
# any module necessary for this one to work correctly
'depends': ['mail', 'website_sale'],
# always loaded
'data': [
restart Odoo, update your module, there is now a Shop section in the website, listing a number of pre-filled (via demonstration data) products.
The second step is to replace the courses model by product.template
,
and add a new category of product for courses:
'security/ir.model.access.csv',
'templates.xml',
'views.xml',
'data.xml',
],
# only loaded in demonstration mode
'demo': [
<odoo>
<record model="product.public.category" id="category_courses">
<field name="name">Courses</field>
<field name="parent_id" ref="website_sale.categ_others"/>
</record>
</odoo>
<record id="course0" model="product.template">
<field name="name">Course 0</field>
<field name="teacher_id" ref="padilla"/>
<field name="public_categ_ids" eval="[(4, ref('academy.category_courses'), False)]"/>
<field name="website_published">True</field>
<field name="list_price" type="float">0</field>
<field name="type">service</field>
</record>
<record id="course1" model="product.template">
<field name="name">Course 1</field>
<field name="teacher_id" ref="padilla"/>
<field name="public_categ_ids" eval="[(4, ref('academy.category_courses'), False)]"/>
<field name="website_published">True</field>
<field name="list_price" type="float">0</field>
<field name="type">service</field>
</record>
<record id="course2" model="product.template">
<field name="name">Course 2</field>
<field name="teacher_id" ref="vaughn"/>
<field name="public_categ_ids" eval="[(4, ref('academy.category_courses'), False)]"/>
<field name="website_published">True</field>
<field name="list_price" type="float">0</field>
<field name="type">service</field>
</record>
class Courses(models.Model):
_name = 'academy.courses'
_inherit = ['mail.thread', 'product.template']
name = fields.Char()
teacher_id = fields.Many2one('academy.teachers', string="Teacher")
With this installed, a few courses are now available in the Shop, though they may have to be looked for.
Notitie
to extend a model in-place, it’s
inherited
without giving it a new_name
product.template
already uses the discussions system, so we can remove it from our extension modelwe’re creating our courses as published by default so they can be seen without having to log in
Altering existing views¶
So far, we have briefly seen:
the creation of new models
the creation of new views
the creation of new records
the alteration of existing models
We’re left with the alteration of existing records and the alteration of existing views. We’ll do both on the Shop pages.
View alteration is done by creating extension views, which are applied on top of the original view and alter it. These alteration views can be added or removed without modifying the original, making it easier to try things out and roll changes back.
Since our courses are free, there is no reason to display their price on the shop page, so we’re going to alter the view and hide the price if it’s 0. The first task is finding out which view displays the price, this can be done via
which lets us read the various templates involved in rendering a page. Going through a few of them, “Product item” looks a likely culprit.Altering view architectures is done in 3 steps:
Create a new view
Extend the view to modify by setting the new view’s
inherit_id
to the modified view’s external idIn the architecture, use the
xpath
tag to select and alter elements from the modified view
<template id="product_item_hide_no_price" inherit_id="website_sale.products_item">
<xpath expr="//div[hasclass('product_price')]/b" position="attributes">
<attribute name="t-if">product.price > 0</attribute>
</xpath>
</template>
The second thing we will change is making the product categories sidebar visible by default:
lets you toggle a tree of product categories (used to filter the main display) on and off.This is done via the customize_show
and active
fields of extension
templates: an extension template (such as the one we’ve just created) can be
customize_show=True. This choice will display the view in the Customize
menu with a check box, allowing administrators to activate or disable them
(and easily customize their website pages).
We simply need to modify the Product Categories record and set its default to active=”True”:
<record id="website_sale.products_categories" model="ir.ui.view">
<field name="active" eval="True"/>
</record>
With this, the Product Categories sidebar will automatically be enabled when the Academy module is installed.