Example: Recommended way to hide entry fields in new contact view

Question

I just got CiviCRM installed and I also did some customizing, but now I am not sure how to proceed. AFAICS using extensions and hooks is the recommended way of customizing civicrm, but there no examples for hiding/removing fields, although many people seem to need that. Could someone post an example of hiding unwanted fields like nickname/pseudonym or something from the new contact entry page? Let me explain: I want to set up Civicrm for a non profit club and they are quite conservative. Nicknames and messenger entries are not wanted, so I want to hide them in a way that survives Security Updates.

Thanks

Answer 1

One way to simplify data entry is to consider using a Profile as the way for your users to add new contacts. This means you add fields that you want, rather then removing fields you don't want. Once you have created a Profile you can then use the 'create' version link such as

http://d46.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=1&reset=1

but you don't get the same warnings in terms of potential matches, and there are no doubt other downsides (such as the unwanted fields still showing on the Summary screen), but it may be worth a thought as a temporary fix if you hadn't already considered it.