SP2010 Hide elements on the Site Settings Page

Question

You can use the HideCustomAction element to hide links on the Site Settings Page.
I was wondring how to hide actions which are linked with for example the enabling of the Publishing Features: Under Look and Feel: Master Page, Page Layouts and site templates...
How can you hide them? (Without disabling the Publishing features)

Under Site Collection Administration you also have a lot of links you can not hide? or which are not defined in the 14 hive (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\SiteSettings\SiteSettings.xml)

Answer 1

I dont know of a out of the box feature to do it, but i've done something similair int he past. What you'd have to do is as follow:

1. Create a HTTPModule which intercept all requests. If users are part of a specific group/flag, then redirect them to a modified version of your settings page.

2. Copy the Settings pages you want to change into a VS Solution , strip out the sections/links not required , save it and deploy to LAYOUTS/MySettingsPages (example)

3. Have the HTTPModule redirect to LAYOUTS/MySettingsPages/settings.aspx if a user is not part of your "special" security group.

If you want to permanently delete/disable these features/links, then just edit the ASPX files in the LAYOUTS Folder (not recommended).