In the admin interface of Magento I need to modify the tables in the Sales / Order / View order so that it shows, besides the products name, their manufacturer as well.
I've no magento installation available, but I have some ideas. Maybe the column is not defined inside a template file (phtml), but inside a xml layout file. Just search in the layout/sales.xml file.
And maybe you have not disabled the magento cache, that's why you don't see any changes.
For adding the table header:
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items.phtml
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items/renderer/default.phtml
These files are useful.
http://magentocoder.jigneshpatel.co.in/create-custom-reports-in-magento-admin/
Should get you most of the way.
For adding the table header and it's value add layout sales_order_view.xml in your theme or module with new argument.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" layout="admin-2columns-left" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
<body>
<referenceBlock name="order_items">
<arguments>
<argument name="columns" xsi:type="array">
<item name="product" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Product</item>
<item name="status" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Item Status</item>
<item name="price-original" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Original Price</item>
<item name="price" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Price</item>
<item name="ordered-qty" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Qty</item>
<item name="subtotal" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Subtotal</item>
<item name="tax-amount" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Tax Amount</item>
<item name="tax-percent" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Tax Percent</item>
<item name="discont" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Discount Amount</item>
<item name="total" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Row Total</item>
<item name="repair" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Repair</item>
</argument>
</arguments>
<block class="Namespace\Module\Block\Adminhtml\DefaultRenderer" as="default" template="Magento_Sales::order/view/items/renderer/default.phtml">
<arguments>
<argument name="columns" xsi:type="array">
<item name="product" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-product</item>
<item name="status" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-status</item>
<item name="price-original" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-price-original</item>
<item name="price" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-price</item>
<item name="qty" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-ordered-qty</item>
<item name="subtotal" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-subtotal</item>
<item name="tax-amount" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-tax-amount</item>
<item name="tax-percent" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-tax-percent</item>
<item name="discont" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-discont</item>
<item name="total" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-total</item>
<item name="repair" xsi:type="string" translate="false">col-repair</item>
</argument>
</arguments>
</block>
</referenceBlock>
</body>
` I have added new column with name repair. now you have to add value for that column. so you have to override '\Magento\Sales\Block\Adminhtml\Order\View\Items\Renderer\DefaultRenderer' file in your block and in getColumnHtml() method you have to add your value for that column.
After quite a lot of browsing through the code and with some help from a collegue, we found out the two file to change for adding a column to such view:
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items.phtml
for adding the table header
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items/renderer/default.phtml
for filling the column with data.
I'm not really experienced with Magento but I guess that, in order to do a "clean job", one should not directly modify those files but override them instead.
EDIT
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/downloadable/sales/order/view/items/renderer/downloadable.phtml
for filling the column with data for downloadable products.Admin grids are ofter controlled by their block. For sales it's the Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Sales_Order_Grid class
modifying/overriding method _prepareColumns() should do the trick