Hide Attributes and Other Fields in Product Edit Backend

Question

To make editing of products (and maybe also categories) for the shop owner easier, we would like to hide some unnecessary tabs and fields from some users in the admin backend.

This means: Hiding some attributes, but also tabs like "customer reviews", "cross-selling" etc.

How can this be done?

Answer 1

Set is_visible to 0 on the attribute and it won't show up in admin forms (product page and also the attribute management page).

You can do it via a SQL tool or programmatically in a setup script:

$installer->updateAttribute('catalog_product', $attribute_code, 'is_visible', '0');

Answer 2

This is possible with observing the events core_block_abstract_prepare_layout_before (method removeAttributes()) and core_block_abstract_prepare_layout_after (method removeTabs()).

remark: I am putting this into a module which adds ACL entries for each attribute / tab so they can be hidden from certain users.

In the observers we have to check, that we are in the block Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Catalog_Product_Edit_Tabs and can remove tabs or attributes.

/**
 * Overwrite the cache field in the product to remove disabled attributes
 *
 * event: core_block_abstract_prepare_layout_before
 *
 * @param Varien_Event_Observer $event
 */
public function removeAttributes(Varien_Event_Observer $event)
{
    $block = $event->getBlock();
    if (!$block instanceof Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Catalog_Product_Edit_Tabs) {
        return;
    }

    $editableAttributes = $block->getProduct()->getTypeInstance()->getEditableAttributes();
    $adminSession = Mage::getSingleton('admin/session');


    // TODO: remove attribute to hide from the $editableAttributes array

   $block->getProduct()->setData('_cache_editable_attributes', $editableAttributes);
}

/**
 * Remove hidden tabs from product edit
 * event: core_block_abstract_prepare_layout_after
 *
 * @param Varien_Event_Observer $event
 */
public function removeTabs(Varien_Event_Observer $event)
{
    $block = $event->getBlock();
    if (!$block instanceof Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Catalog_Product_Edit_Tabs) {
        return;
    }

    // TODO / Example: remove inventory tab
    $block->removeTab('inventory'); 

    // fix tab selection, as we might have removed the active tab
    $tabs = $block->getTabsIds();

    if (count($tabs) == 0) {
        $block->setActiveTab(null);
    } else {
        $block->setActiveTab($tabs[0]);
    }
}

Answer 3

A relatively easy way to hide tabs is to just create a new Admin user and give access only to the areas the Shop Owner will be using. Will keep things simple for the shop owner while still leaving you or some other developer the ability to make changes.

Answer 4

Free module on Magento connect - untested and a bit old (Magento 1.6)

http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/product-fields-permission-3864.html