Question

As per bens comment and answer I updated my script, comments indicate changes

{Magento 1.4.0.1} currently i have an installer script:

$installer = $this;
$installer->startSetup();

//commented out to use factory method
//$setup = new Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Eav_Mysql4_Setup('core_setup');
$setup = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/setup','core_setup');    

if(!$setup->getAttribute('catalog_product','attribute_code')){
    $newFields = array(
        'attribute_code' => array(
            'type'              => 'text',
            'label'             => 'Attribute Label',
            //added visible option
            'visible'           => false,
        ),
    );

    $entities = array(
        'catalog_product',
    );

    foreach($newFields as $attributeName => $attributeDefs) {
        foreach ($entities as $entity) {
            $setup->addAttribute($entity, $attributeName, array(
                'type'                          => $attributeDefs['type'],
                'label'                         => $attributeDefs['label'],
                //added visible option
                'visible'                       => $attributeDefs['visible'],
                'class'                         => '',
                'required'                      => false,
            ));
        }
    }
}

$installer->endSetup();

It works wonderfully! Except the attribute shows up in the General attribute group when editing the product and I don’t want it to show up at all (its a secret ninja attribute) is there something I’m doing wrong? or perhaps something I should be doing to let Magento know not its not supposed to show up?

Answer 1

Using addAttribute() you can set the ‘visibleindex tofalse. UsingupdateAttribute()` you should do the following:

$setup->updateAttribute('catalog_product','attr_code','is_visible',false);

Let me know if I’m wrong.