Alter entity_translation vertical tab access

Question

How can you set #access to false for the vertical tab "Translation" (entity translation) on the node edit form?

When using entity translation and a user has the permission to edit a node and edit translations, a new vertical tab is injected in the node edit form:

Translation
Translation is published. Do notflag translation as outdated
[x] This translation is published
[ ] Flag translation as outdated

Since I have editors that need to edit translations but shall not have access to this v-tab (it is being confused with the Publishing options for the node, leading to people altering the translation status where the node in its entirety should be unpublished/published instead).

Using hook_form_alter() in a custom module, I do not find any trace of the above form element in the $form array. According to a grep search, it is defined in the file /modules/entity_translation/includes/translation.handler.inc:1051. I assume it is being cached somehow, as that part of the code is not being executed when the form is built (breakpoints do not trigger).

Worst case, I could use Javascript to hide the form element, but I would rather not have to rely on such a hack. If possible, I would like to set #access to false for the editor role (or similar).

Answer 1

The reason you cannot use hook_form_alter() to modify the tabs is because the hook you implement in your custom module is being fired before entity translation injects the tab.

If you use hook_module_implements_after() you can change the order of the execution of the hooks.

function CUSTOMMODULE_module_implements_alter(&$modules, $hook)
{
    if ($hook == "form_alter")
    {
print_r($modules);
        // save off hook
        $temp = $modules["testing"];

        // remove it
        unset($modules["testing"]);

        // add it to the end
        $modules["testing"] = $temp;
print_r($modules);
    }
}

The first print_r outputs:

Array
(
    ...
    [CUSTOMMODULE] => 
    [entity_translation] => 
)

The second print_r outputs:

Array
(
    ...
    [entity_translation] => 
    [CUSTOMMODULE] => 
)

Now that the custom module fires after entity translation, use hook_form_alter() to hide the tab:

function CUSTOMMODULE_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id)
{
    // make sure you set the form_id in this conditional properly.
    // I am using the edit form of a "page" node type.
    if ($form_id == "page_node_form")
    {
        $form["translation"]["#access"] = FALSE;
    }
}