Allow further customization of search form in hooks
The contact search form uses the template templates/CRM/Contact/Form/Search/Criteria/Basic.tpl. In the template there are already some conditionals to hide certain fields, such as
{if $form.group}
<td>
...
{/if}However only some fields are covered. For an extension developer who wants to hide more fields here it is difficult without causing warnings or breaking the layout.
It is now possible to override the fields on the basic search template by altering the fields array assigned to the template in a hook