CE1.9.2.4 - how to remove column from Customer Adminhtml Grid

Question

I've successfully extended the core Customer Grid to show some custom attributes, but also need to remove the Country column - the site in question only operates in one country, so it's unnecessary and takes up space on smaller screens.

I've tried:

protected function _prepareColumns(){
    $this->removeColumn('billing_country_id'); // <---- this does not work :(
    $this->addColumnAfter('department', array(
        'header'    => Mage::helper('customer')->__('Department'),
        'index'     => 'department'
    ),'email');

    return parent::_prepareColumns();
}

but this does not seem to work. Is there another method that I can use?

Answer 1

Removing the column doesn't work because at the moment when you are calling the removeColumn method, the billing_country_id column hasn't been added yet. That column gets added when Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Customer_Grid::_prepareColumns is called, and that happens at the end of your method. You can try something like this:

protected function _prepareColumns() {
    parent::_prepareColumns();
    $this->removeColumn('billing_country_id'); // <--- hopefully this will work :)
    $this->addColumnAfter('department', array(
        'header'    => Mage::helper('customer')->__('Department'),
        'index'     => 'department'
    ), 'email');
    $this->sortColumnsByOrder();
    return $this;
}

I've also added the sortColumnsByOrder method call at the end in order to sort the newly added column too.