project_state_selection

Project managers rate a project's health with the status field last_update_status: On Track, At Risk, Off Track, On Hold, Done, plus a To Define default for new projects. This widget renders that selection as a colored bubble with a dropdown, in the project list's Status column and on kanban cards.

It subclasses the generic state_selection widget and changes two things. First, the colors: instead of the generic red and green pair it installs the project palette, a value-to-number map documented in project_update.py, and switches the CSS prefix so each status renders as o_status_bubble o_color_bubble_<n>. On Track is 20, On Hold 21, At Risk 22, Off Track 23, Done 24.

Second, the choices: its options getter filters the value to_define out of the dropdown. A freshly created project displays the neutral bubble of its default To Define status, but the moment someone picks a real status there is no way back from the widget.

The status bubble is the fastest portfolio signal in Odoo. A director scanning forty projects reads the color column in seconds; the same field feeds project updates, where each recorded update snapshots the status at that date.

The removed To Define option is a small piece of product opinion worth copying: undefined is an acceptable starting point but not an acceptable answer. Once a manager has rated the project, the UI refuses to let them un-rate it, which keeps portfolio reports free of projects that drifted back to unknown.

Because the bubble writes last_update_status directly with an immediate save, it also pairs naturally with automations: a status flip to Off Track can trigger an activity for the program lead or a message to a steering channel, and the change is stamped the moment it is clicked.

How core applies it in the project list

<field name="last_update_color" column_invisible="True"/>
<field name="last_update_status" string="Status" nolabel="1" width="20px"
       widget="project_state_selection" invisible="is_template"/>

Showing the status text next to the bubble

<field name="last_update_status" widget="project_state_selection"
       options="{'hide_label': False}"/>

Read-only display trick used by core kanban

For non-editable kanban cards, core skips the widget entirely and renders the stored color number as a static bubble:

<span t-att-class="'o_status_bubble mx-0 o_color_bubble_' + record.last_update_color.value"/>

That works because the model stores the same palette number in last_update_color that the widget derives from the status value.

The 16-to-17 registration change is the detail that bites during migrations.

In Odoo 16 the bare name did not exist. The file registered only kanban.project_state_selection, a view-prefixed entry, and registered the raw component class rather than a descriptor. Two consequences: the widget worked only in kanban views, and because there was no descriptor there was no extractProps, so options like autosave were never read. A 16 view that wrote widget="project_state_selection" in a list or form logged Missing widget and fell back to the plain selection field.

Since 17 it is a normal descriptor under the bare name, usable in any view type, with the generic options flowing through. The 16 kanban-only registration was dropped in the same change.

The color plumbing is shared, not duplicated. The palette map and the o_status_bubble mx-0 o_color_bubble_ prefix are imported from project_utils.js, and the exact same constants power the status_with_color widget used on project updates. Change one and both change.

One dropped state, client-side only. The to_define filter lives in the widget's options getter, so server code and imports can still write the value; only the dropdown hides it. The current value always renders, whatever it is, because the button part shows the field's actual state.

Odoo 20 is expected at Odoo Experience in Brussels, 24 to 26 September 2026, and the development branch can change until release.

As of this writing the widget file is byte-identical between 19.0 and the development branch: same palette, same To Define filter, same registration. The relevant movement is upstream again: the parent state_selection widget loses its autosave option on the branch, which would make the immediate-save behavior this subclass inherits unconditional rather than configurable. We re-verify after release.