Custom module: select all entries from section with Entry::find() extremely slow/not working

[dolphiq-allard]

I am trying to create a custom module where I fill a dropbox with all entries from a specific section (which currently holds 1 entry) using the following code:

use craft\fields\Dropdown;
use craft\elements\Entry;
use craft\elements\db\EntryQuery;

class ThemeSelector extends Dropdown
{
    public static function displayName(): string
    {
        return 'Color theme';
    }

    public function init(): void
    {
        $this->setTheme();
        parent::init();
    }

    protected function setTheme(): void
    {

        $this->options = [
            [
                'label' => 'Choose a color theme',
                'value' => '',
                'disabled' => true,
            ],
        ];

        $themes = Entry::find()
            ->section('colorThemes')
            ->all();

        foreach ($themes as $key => $theme) {
            $this->options[] = [
                'label' => 'Label goes here',
                'value' => 'Value goes here',
            ];
        }

    }


    public function getSettingsHtml(): ?string
    {
        return null;
    }
}

However, adding ->all() to the entry class takes forever and yields a 502 bad gateway error. If I do the same in a twig template using e.g. {% for entry in craft.entries.section('colorThemes').all() %} it works fine and fast.

Any hints on what it is I am missing here. Thanks.

[Anubarak]

You are running in an endless loop because you call this function inside your fields init function.
This is a well known topic #4944

When you execute an ElementQuery while Craft isn't fully bootstrapped it tries to grab all fields in order to append all where and select operations for the Query.
So Craft will initialize all fields, and in your init function it will then search for all entries thus create an ElementQuery. This one will search for all fields, grabs your field and will make a new ElementQuery and so on and so on.

For the sake of performance and best practice you should not fetch all entries unless they are really required... keep in mind otherwise EVERY single request will fetch all entries of this section.

[dolphiq-allard]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. If you don't mind me asking, in your opinion, what would be the correct way to populate my dropdown with the entries from the colorThemes section?

[Anubarak]

You should do it when you need the entries
For example when you render the options.

You can take a look at the default Dropdown field, it passes the available options to the template in the inputHtml function because they are not required before either grabbing the field value or before rendering it.

However to be honest I don't fully get why you use a custom Dropdown field and no Entries Field for that purpose to be honest.

[dolphiq-allard]

I think it's somewhat more intuitive to present just one selectbox. Furthermore I can combine it with a filter to return a specific piece of code to render the CSS.

Valid point though. Thanks again.