Finally, .. i got this to work in a semi satisfactory manner .. thank you Again Anthony !
For the ones who may have had or will have the same issue with the select_datewidget ! ... The idea here is 1) put the widget " def select_datewidget(field,value): .... " at the end of a model file ( in this case it was db.py ) 2) Then, the trick here is, put the following line at the end of the same file right after step (1) : db.yourtable.your_date_field.widget = select_datewidget 3) wheter you use SQLFORM.factory or not in the controller, the select_datewidget will be by default ! instead of the datepicker popup calendar ! but you may have to use it ( or SQLFORM ) to customise the form you want ... BECAUSE : in the view, with the help of css, you will need to customise the width of the HTML select tag otherwise, it will use the size defined by the css included in the app. like the following : {{=form.custom.begin}} . . <html_tag (class_or_id) =" defined_width "> {{=form.custom.widget.datefield}} </html_tag> . . {{=form.custom.end}} The main problem with this approach is .. all the select fields for the date to be chosen will be the same width ... I have not found a way to make them with different width .. that was very frustrating ... I cannot play with the different 3 date fields in the view ( year, month, day ) embedded in the datefield of the table ! ... unless someone else come up with a way to do it !! .... Else where ... I had to look into the select_datewidget solution simply because, if someone uses another grid system in web2py, the datepicker popup breaks ! ... it will popup but does not show up properly .... this may be a bug ! .. All the Thead items of the popup table show up on the left side even when there is no float left anywhere in the css used ! --