Change record status: 
Introduced in branch: 
7.x-2.x
Introduced in version: 
7.x-2.0-alpha1
Description: 

The change should not prevent existing configurations from still working, but they will not be available on the next save.

To hide your image or file field formatter from being used as a file formatter, add a flag to your hook_field_formatter_info, like shown in the code below. You would typically use this for any formatters that call file_view or file_view_multiple() since it easily could cause recursion.

function mymodule_field_formatter_info() {
  $info['my_file_formatter'] = array(
    'description' => t('My file formatter that uses file_view_multiple()'),
    'field types' => array('file'),
    // Setting this flag here will mean this formatter will not automatically be made available as a 'file formatter'
    'hidden file formatter' => TRUE,
  );
  return $info;
}
Impacts: 
Site builders, administrators, editors
Module developers