Another option is to improve the tooltips.

The modifying and maintaining of the tooltips will be discussed in this post.

A tooltip is a small box, which contains a brief text message explaining the field. It appears below the label of a field on the MS CRM forms when the pointer of a mouse passes over or rests on that label and which contains a brief text message identifying or explaining the object. When the pointer moves away from the label the tooltip disappears.

Tooltips are available on every field on a MS CRM form. The current tooltips show the text of the label, which, in my opinion, does  not have any benefits. If you can read to label, you can read to tooltip. But the good thing is, we can change the contents of the current tooltips.

At the moment the only restrictions to the tooltips are that only unformatted text can be used and that the total amount of characters is no more than 512.

The onLoad code:

crmForm.all.new_attribute_c.title = “contents of the tooltip”

Example:

Yesterday a customer asked me to change the text in a read-only field. I’m system administrator on their system, so the easiest way should have been to change the Field Properties of the attribute, but this would allow all users to change this attributes on all records.
Another option would be to use the Enrich Functionality, described in this post.

I tried a third option, triggering javascript via the Address Bar of Internet Explorer. The usage may be well know, but I never thought of using it to modify read-only fields on records. Well, it is surprisingly easy. All you need to know it the id of the attribute you want to modify. (The id can be found with something like the IE Developer Toolbar.)
If you have the id the code is easy and you only have to copy it into the address bar of the record you want to modify:

javascript:crmForm.all.new_attribute.DataValue = "read-only doesn't work for me"; crmForm.all.new_attribute.ForceSubmit = true; crmForm.Save();

This means every user with modify rights on a record can change read-only field on that record.

Example
This script displays the values of these global variables.

alert("SERVER_URL="+SERVER_URL );
alert("USER_LANGUAGE_CODE="+USER_LANGUAGE_CODE);
alert("ORG_LANGUAGE_CODE="+ORG_LANGUAGE_CODE);
alert("ORG_UNIQUE_NAME="+ORG_UNIQUE_NAME);

(Source SDK MS CRM 4.0)

More JavaScript Code

Replacing the content of an IFRAME
Adding additional values to duration fields
Changing the title of a CRM form
Changing the Link of a Ticker Symbol from MSN Money to Yahoo Finances
Counting the number of backslashes in a string
Changing the label of a field at runtime
Changing the color of a single option in a picklist
Opening a new window without the IE menu and status bars
Retrieving the text of a lookup control
Disabling a form at runtime
Automatically changing the value of a text field to capitals
Getting notified when the user selects a another tab on a form
The current record id
The current object type code
Initializing a date field with the current date
Changing the URL of an IFRAME at runtime
Displaying a picture in a CRM form, using a text field to store the data source
Changing the default lookup type
Checking if a field is present in a form
Calculating a date field based upon the selection of a picklist
Creating a new email when double-clicking a standard text field
Resetting a field value if validation fails
Inserting line breaks in a text area control
Hiding an entire row of a CRM form

More JavaScript Code – Part 2

Disabling the time selection of a date/time field
Changing the time interval in date/time fields
Getting the quote id inside a quotedetail form
How to know which button triggered the OnSave event
Accessing the CRM database from JavaScript
Modifying the Quick Create Form
Forcing the selection of an account in the potential customer field of an opportunity
Hiding and showing fields dynamically based on other field values
Removing the value from a lookup field
Hiding tabs at runtime
Setting the active tab
Displaying related entities instead of the form when opening a record
Modifying the color of disabled form fields
Removing a navigation bar entry at runtime
Changing the color of a label

More JavaScript Code – Part 3

Setting the background color of a CRM form
Why can’t we use VBScript to write client-side code?
Some calculated fields on the CRM form are not saved in the database
Changing detailed tooltips when hovering over fields in a CRM form
Fixing problems with orphaned OnChange event handlers
Setting the field required level at runtime
Setting a default time in a date field
User interaction with yes/no style message boxes
Testing if a lookup field has a value
Comparing date values
Getting notified when the user enters a form field
Overriding the click event of a lookup field
Formatting a date to YYYYMMDD
The DataValue of a picklist is a string!
Setting a picklist’s default value in code
Starting an application from a CRM form
Changing the available entity types in a lookup dialog
Setting the text of the “Save As Completed” button
Calculating durations
Hiding a single field
Setting a text field to the name of the entity referenced in a lookup control
Getting notified when a user changes a checkbox value before leaving the field
Preventing an OnChange event handler from executing when the form closes

Client Side Scripting – More JavaScript Code – Part 4 

Maximizing a form
Using a toolbar button to open a referenced entity
Calculating the sum of two or more fields
Calculating the total charge based on actural duration, hourly rate, trip charge and tax rate
Changing error messages in CRM forms
Setting a custom date field to another date minus 60 days
Changing the default height of the lookup window
Accessing the previous field value in OnChange
Automatically calculate the tax value in an invoice line (invoicedetail)
Performing an action when a CRM form closes
Hooking into the “Lookup Address” feature in the order form
Changing the form title (not the browser title)
Passing parameters from a toolbar button to a CRM form
Aborting an OnChange operation

Client Side Scripting – More JavaScript Code – Part 5 

Formatting international phone numbers
Rounding numerical fields
Be aware of null values in Boolean fields
Reusing code in OnLoad and OnChange event handlers
Getting notified when the user selected an address in the address picker (quote, order, invoice)
What is “if (condition) ? statement1 : statement2″?
Copying the display name of a selected lookup value into a textbox
Retrieving all fields inside a CRM form
Knowing if you are running in CRM 3.0 or CRM 4.0
Showing/Hiding tabs based on the selection in a picklist
Changing the background color of a form (CRM 4.0)
Calculating the difference of two numerical fields
Disable all fields on a form
When events do not fire anymore

if (document.all.nav_new_form(B)_new_form(A) !=null)
{
document.all.nav_new_form(B)_new_form(A).style.display = "none";
}

In version 4.0 hiding a link can also be done via out-of-the-box customization.

//first check if the user is online. If the user is online, than the organization name should be used in the link. Otherwise (if offline) the organisation name should not be used in the link.
if (IsOnline())
{
var org = "/" + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME;
}
else
{
var org = "";
}

//the first part is to hide the borders
var frameName = 'IFRAME_Name';
var objFrame = document.getElementById(frameName);
var objWindow = document.frames[frameName];
objFrame.allowTransparency=true;
objFrame.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (objWindow.document.readyState=='complete') {
objWindow.document.body.style.backgroundColor='transparent';
if (objWindow.document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0]!=null) {
objWindow.document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0].style.padding='0px';
}
if (objWindow.document.getElementsByTagName('TABLE')[0]!=null) {
objWindow.document.getElementsByTagName('TABLE')[0].cellPadding='0';
objWindow.document.getElementsByTagName('TABLE')[0].style.border='0px';
}
}
}

//setting the contents of the iframe
var navFrame2;
navFrame2 =
document.all.nav_new_new_entity_new_relatedentity;
var navWindow = document.frames['IFRAME_Name_d'];

//and checking if the entity has been saved, nor quick create, nor bulk edit
if (crmForm.FormType==1 || crmForm.FormType==5 || crmForm.FormType==6)
{
document.all.IFRAME_Name.src="about:blank";
}
else
{
if (navFrame2 != null)
{
document.all.IFRAME_Name.src= org + "/userdefined/areas.aspx?oId=" +
crmForm.ObjectId +"&oType="+crmForm.ObjectTypeCode+"&security=852023&tabSet=new_new_entity_new_relatedentity";
navFrame2.name = navFrame2.id;
}
else{
alert("Page Not Found");
}
}

//PS Make sure the Security Setting “Restrict cross-frame scripting” is NOT enabled on the iFrame Properties form (the checkbox should be empty)  
//AND you have to change the userdefined for system entities, but who is using does… (in the link of the parent entity you can find the solution e.g. something like ‘document.all.IFRAME_Name.src= org + “/sfa/opps/ ‘ etc).

var lookup = crmForm.all.new_lookupid.DataValue;
if (lookup[0] !=null)
{
var theText = lookup[0].name;
}
crmForm.all.new_textfield.DataValue = (theText);
crmForm.all.new_textfield.ForceSubmit = true;

crmForm.all.new_attribute_c.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.style.display = 'none'

To show the section again:

crmForm.all.new_attribute_c.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.style.display = 'block'