How do I edit link tabs found on the default user profile page in drupal?

Question

How do I edit link tabs found on the default user profile page in drupal? I'm trying to avoid having to create a user_profile.tpl.php file and rebuild the entire profile from scratch. If there's an easier way to do this, I'd rather do that. But, if I'm forced to create a custom template, how do I control the menu tabs for the profile? I haven't found any documentation that explains that part yet.

Answer 1

It's in menus. The menu you want to edit is called Primary links as far as I remember.

ALSO the tabs show up when You fill in one field when creating an article, so to remove such a link You have to click it, click edit in the article and unfold the "menu link" part and clear the fields there or edit.

Answer 2

Edit

I didn't catch that you wanted to do generic modification of the user profile tabs, not necessarily removing them. I've modified my code to provide a few different examples of how you can modify the tabs.

Edit 2

Removed the user_access() check on the unset as it would only be checked during the menu rebuild. Added access callback example instead.

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You can do this in a custom module with hook_menu_alter() and unset():

function mymodule_menu_alter(&$items) {
  // If you have the Devel module installed, uncomment to retrieve list
  // of registered menu items to figure out what to unset.
  // kpr($items);

  // Change the name of the Edit tab
  $items['user/%user_category/edit']['title'] = t('Awesome edit!');

  // Disable the user edit tab, but don't disable the page if you go navigate 
  // directly to it
  // @see http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_menu/6 for other types
  $items['user/%user_category/edit']['type'] = MENU_CALLBACK;

  // Only allow people with administer site configuration permissions to
  // access the user edit and user edit account tabs.
  $items['user/%user_category/edit']['access callback'] = 'user_access';
  $items['user/%user_category/edit']['access arguments'] = array('administer site configuration');
  $items['user/%user_category/edit/account']['access callback'] = 'user_access';
  $items['user/%user_category/edit/account']['access arguments'] = array('administer site configuration');

  // Completely disable the user edit tab, even if you go directly to it
  // This affects all users, including user 1.
  unset($items['user/%user_category/edit']);
  unset($items['user/%user_category/edit/account']);
}

Each menu item is registered with Drupal using the $items array. After enabling this module, rebuild the cache and the tabs should be modified.