formatted_date

Odoo's standard date widget always renders in the user's locale format, digits and all. formatted_date exists for the cases where the view, not the locale, should decide how a date reads: a certifications list where Mar 2026 scans faster than 03/01/2026, a deadline column that turns red when a condition on the record is met.

It is a pure display widget. The template renders one <span> with the date passed through toLocaleString using the day, month and year formats you configure, so the actual spelling (whether "short" means Mar or mars) still follows the user's language. There is no input, no picker, no editing path at all.

Its second trick is the empty state: no date renders as the word Indefinite, muted and half transparent. That default is hardcoded, and it tells you where the widget comes from: certification expiry dates in the Employee Skills app, where an empty To date genuinely means "does not expire".

This widget earns its keep in list views that people scan daily.

Readable beats precise. An HR team reviewing certifications does not need day-level precision in the overview; "Aug 2026" columns are faster to scan and compare than full numeric dates. Precision stays one click away on the form.

Conditional color is cheap risk visibility. The color option evaluates expressions against each record, so an expiry column can render text-danger when a certification is already expired and text-warning when it expires within the quarter, computed from a helper field. That is a no-backend-logic way to make a list triage itself.

The caveat we flag to clients: it requires the hr_skills module. On non-HR databases, achieving the same effect means copying a 60-line widget into a custom module, which is a small, low-risk customization.

Short month, as core uses it

<field name="valid_from" string="From" widget="formatted_date"
       options="{'month_format': 'short'}"/>

Renders as Mar 2, 2026 for an English user, with day and year still numeric.

Conditional colors from record data

<field name="valid_to" widget="formatted_date"
       options="{'month_format': 'short', 'color': {'danger': 'is_expired', 'warning': 'expires_soon'}}"/>

Each key is a Bootstrap color suffix, each value a Python expression evaluated against the record. The first truthy one applies as text-danger, text-warning and so on.

Fully spelled out

<field name="issue_date" widget="formatted_date"
       options="{'day_format': '2-digit', 'month_format': 'long', 'year_format': 'numeric'}"/>

Two implementation details decide whether this widget fits your use case.

The color expressions run in the record's evaluation context. The source evaluates each expression with evaluateBooleanExpr against evalContextWithVirtualIds, the same machinery behind invisible and readonly conditions. That means the expressions can reference any field loaded in the view, but comparisons against "today" are not available in that context, so time-based coloring needs a computed boolean or date field on the model to compare against.

The empty-state label is not configurable. "Indefinite" is a hardcoded, translatable string in the component. If your business language for an empty date is "none" or "open-ended", the placeholder attribute will not help; that string only changes by extending the widget.

Also worth knowing: the widget declares supportedTypes: ["date"] only. Pointing it at a datetime field is not supported; convert with a related date field instead.

Odoo 20 is expected at Odoo Experience in Brussels, 24 to 26 September 2026. The notes below are read from the public development branch and are not final until release.

No changes: the source file on master is byte-identical to Odoo 19, options and Indefinite label included. Views should carry over untouched. We re-verify this page against the shipped release.