boolean_checkbox

The entire widget is this:

export class BooleanCheckboxField extends BooleanField {
    get displayAsToggle() {
        return false;
    }
}

export const booleanCheckboxField = {
    ...booleanField,
    component: BooleanCheckboxField,
};

One getter, hardcoded to false. The descriptor spreads the boolean descriptor so everything else is inherited.

That looks pointless until you read what the getter overrides, which is the reason this widget had to be created at all.

A checkbox and a toggle mean subtly different things to users. A checkbox reads as a form field you fill in and then save. A toggle reads as a switch you flip and something happens.

In Odoo 20 the plain boolean widget picks between them based on screen size, which means the same field can read as a form field on a laptop and a switch on a tablet. Where the distinction carries meaning, that is a problem, and this widget is the fix.

It is worth deciding this deliberately on consent checkboxes, terms acceptance and anything an auditor might look at, where a checkbox affordance is what people expect to see.

Forcing a checkbox regardless of screen size:

<field name="terms_accepted" widget="boolean_checkbox"/>

The three booleans in Odoo 20, side by side:

<!-- checkbox on desktop, toggle on small screens -->
<field name="flag"/>

<!-- always a checkbox -->
<field name="flag" widget="boolean_checkbox"/>

<!-- always a toggle -->
<field name="flag" widget="boolean_toggle"/>

In Odoo 19 the boolean widget had no opinion about screen size. Its component has no displayAsToggle getter at all, and it renders a checkbox everywhere.

Odoo 20 adds one:

get displayAsToggle() {
    return this.ui.isSmall;
}

So the base widget now decides at runtime. On a phone or a narrow window it renders a toggle, because a toggle is a larger and more forgiving touch target. On a desktop it stays a checkbox.

That is a sensible default and a genuine problem for a small number of fields. The affordance is not just decoration: a checkbox signals that the value is part of a form you will save, and a toggle signals an immediate switch. Any field where that distinction carries meaning, a consent box, a terms acceptance, anything in a compliance flow, should not change its meaning when somebody rotates a tablet.

boolean_checkbox overrides the getter to a constant false, which pins the rendering.

Worth noting what this does not do. It does not make the field save differently, and it does not restore anything removed elsewhere in Odoo 20. In particular boolean_toggle lost its autosave option in Odoo 20, along with every other widget in the field library, and this widget does not bring it back.

Introduced in Odoo 20 as a direct response to the base boolean widget becoming screen-size aware in the same release.

Odoo 19 needed no such widget: boolean was always a checkbox and boolean_toggle was always a toggle. Odoo 20 makes that a three-way choice, where the default is now conditional.

The same release removed the autosave option from every widget in the web field library, which hit boolean_toggle and boolean_favorite among others. If you relied on that option to stop a toggle committing immediately, no boolean widget in Odoo 20 restores it.