How to manage form display non programmatically? In Drupal 8, using admin/structure/types/manage/article/form-display, you can manage the form display for your content type. You don't have to rely anymore on contributed modules or on the implementation of the hook_form_FORM_ID_alter() or hook_form_alter() to hide an element in your form when you go to edit or add a node. 



But in Drupal 7 we don't have this functionality, at least not yet. So, how to manage form display in Drupal 7 non programmatically?
The most close approach that I was found is the Display Suite module. 

Display Suite allows you to manage the display of content editing forms for entities (such as nodes, views, comments, users, et cetera). This can be useful if you want to provide the users of your website with a customized edit form (and you don't need to implement the hook_form_alter()).

When enabled Display Suite Forms takes over the Drupal core functionality that let you arrange the fields via the "Manage fields” tab.

Manage display of an editing form


Enable the sub module Display Suite Forms at Administration > Modules (admin/modules)
Go to Administration > Structure > Display Suite (admin/structure/ds)
Click "Manage form" for the entity (e.g., "User") that you like to change
At the bottom of the page, in the vertical tab "Layout for ... in form" choose "One column" and click "Apply"
Chose the Hidden option in the field.
Save the changes




Another way is the use of the Rules Forms  module, but you need make a rule for this after enable the module.


Go to the "Form events" page in the Rules administration menu
(admin/config/workflow/rules/forms).
Select the checkbox "Enable event activation messages on forms" and hit the "Save settings" button.
Go to the form on your site that you would like to customize with Rules, e.g. go to 'node/add/article' to enable events on the "Create Article" form.
On the top of the page you see a drupal message with a link to activate events for the form, click it.
Enter a human-readable label for identifying the form.
In some cases you may want to enable events for individual buttons on the form. To do so, check the checkbox labeled "Enable button level validate/submit events".
Confirm the activation by clicking the "Activate" button.
Go to the "Triggered rules" admin page (admin/config/workflow/rules) and click the "Add a new rule" link.
Fill out the label, choose a form event by selecting one in the "Rules Forms" group and confirm with "Save changes".
Now you can select "Hide an element in the form" and select the element to hidde.




Reference:


https://www.drupal.org/node/1795380
https://www.drupal.org/node/1456178