Hello.

1. If you are inheriting existing object then u have to use that object name i.e "res.partner"

>

   <field name="model">clients.client</field> 
    with  
   <field name="model">res.partner</field> 

  <field name="res_model">clients.client</field> 
   with
  <field name="res_model">res.partner</field

>

OK, after looking at some other sites I made a little change and the code partially works, but the problem now is that the form displays differently than expected. The form view shows all the views of the parent view as well as the new field, but the order and look is not as expected. Can someone help?

the clients.py code is the same as above (no change):

from openerp.osv import osv, fields

class clients_client(osv.osv):
    _inherit = 'res.partner'
    _name = 'clients.client'
    _columns = {
        'id_type': fields.char('ID Type', size=30),
    }
clients_client()

the clients_view.xml looks like this after modification:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<openerp>
<data>

    <record model="ir.ui.view" id="view_clients_client_form">
        <field name="name">clients.client.form</field>
        <field name="model">clients.client</field>
        <field name="inherit_id" ref="base.view_partner_form"/>
        <field name="arch" type="xml">
        <xpath expr="//field[@name='active']" position="after">
                    <field name="id_type"/>
                </xpath>
        </field>
    </record>

    <record model="ir.actions.act_window" id="action_clients_client">
        <field name="name">Clients</field>
        <field name="res_model">clients.client</field>
        <field name="view_type">form</field>
        <field name="view_mode">tree,form</field>
    </record>
    <menuitem name="Clients/Clients/Clients" id="menu_clients_client" action="action_clients_client"/>


</data>
</openerp>

However, as I said before, the form looks different form the way it looks in other modules. Please see the picture:

sama4g.com/res.partner.view.jpg

Can someone help me get the form to look the same?

Please do the change of existing view file with following line:

<field name="model">res.partner</field>

Overall record should be:

<record model="ir.ui.view" id="view_clients_client_form"> <field name="name">clients.client.form</field> <field name="model">res.partner</field> <field name="inherit_id" ref="base.view_partner_form"/> <field name="arch" type="xml"> <xpath expr="//field[@name='active']" position="after"> <field name="id_type"/> </xpath> </field> </record>

Whenever you want to inherit existing class (res.partner), You have to specified in model. I hope you get some idea on this,

Thanks,

Vikram.