'InputfieldPage::getSelectablePages' and ajax loaded field

[Jonathan Lahijani]

I have a page field that I am hooking into and providing the custom dropdown values like this:

$this->addHookAfter('InputfieldPage::getSelectablePages', function(HookEvent $event) {
  if($event->object->hasField == 'my_page_field') {
    $ids = [];
    foreach(wire('pages')->find("...") as $p) {
      $ids[] = $p;
    }
    $event->return = $ids;
  }
});

Due to the nature of my site, the amount of items that will populate in that dropdown field will be quite high (over 2000 pages).  Due to this high amount of pages in that dropdown, the PW admin slows down quite a bit (extra 2 seconds) on edit pages that utilize that field.  To counteract this, I have made that field have the Visibility Presentation of Closed + Load when opened (AJAX), however because I am using the hook described above, it will still load the pages even if the field has not yet been opened.

So my question is, how do I improve the the hook above to execute only after the field has been opened?

[Robin S]

For so many items an autocomplete would perform much better. Is that an option? If it's the need to use a hook to specify selectable pages that's preventing you from using PageAutocomplete there are workarounds for this.