Odoo's web client, or backend, is where employees spend most of their time. In Chapter 10, Backend Views, you saw how to use the existing possibilities that backends offer. Here, we'll take a look at how to extend and customize those possibilities. The web module contains everything related to the user interface in Odoo.

All of the code in this chapter will depend on the web module. As you know, Odoo has two different editions (Enterprise and Community). Community uses the web module for user interfaces, while the Enterprise version uses an extended version of the Community web module, which is the web_enterprise module.

The Enterprise version provides some extra features over the Community web, such as mobile compatibility, searchable menus, material design, and so on. We'll work on the Community edition here. Don't worry—the modules developed in Community work perfectly in the Enterprise edition because, internally web_enterprise depends on the Community web module and just adds some features to it.

In this chapter, you will learn how to create new field widgets to get input from the users. We will also be creating a new view from scratch. After reading this chapter, you will be able to create your own UI elements in the Odoo backend.