TYPO3 Core

Did not debug again but this huge amount of time just appeared again this morning while configuring a Dropbox storage. Since every directory is searched for recursively, it took minutes (!) to fetch the structure of directories in my Dropbox account (total of about 50 directories?). So locally this may be slow but with remote storages this is even worse.

Creating a new filemount or editing a filemount creates a select box of all (!) directories in the storage (e.g. fileadmin).

We had this problem too. It can make managing filemounts very sluggish if you have lots of directories. Takes several minutes.

It would be nice if you could have the choice of filtering before TYPO3 starts scanning everything. Also, the usability of the long select list is not so great.

btw. we decided to split up the fileadmin into several storages on our site (mostly because of this problem). It takes the load off this problem. This also made sense for organizational reasons and has so far not had had any negative effect. It's made a bit difficult by the fact that you currently can't move entire directories through the GUI across storages (see #77988. #66514, #87662), but it is possible.

I think the workaround would be to change the field type to simple input text input field.
The issue then is that there is no validation and user needs to put correct path.

Another workaround is to limit the number of levels for fetched folders.
In my case I've just commented the foreach in "getSubfoldersForOptionList()", as I just need one level of folders.

Another solution would be to utilize file browser with filed type group

'config' => [
                'type' => 'group',
                'internal_type' => 'folder',
                'maxitems' => 1,
            ]

The problem with this approach is that it saves data with slightly different format in db (path is prepended with storage id) e.g "2:/foldername/",
and there is no build in functionality right now to limit element browser to just one storage.

On the other hand maybe the whole UX could be then simplified:
- the "base" field being removed
- only one group field with element browser being there in which you select both storage and path in one go?

1. About the input field: I think that would not be so good from usability view: User has to type in (or copy/paste) the complete path name
2. Limit the recursion depth: I think this might work if it's possible to do this optionally (at the beginning you have to select the storage anyway and you get a reload.). But it's not so elegant. It seems technical and is not intuitive for everyone.
3. with the group + internal_type=folder: This might be a less better solution than current for high recursion depth but few directories (because choosing them from the select list is 1 click). But for a lot of directories in the storage, it is a better solution than current.

About selecting both storage and path in one go: I think that would be nice for usability (because the current choose storage, reload is a bit clunky anyway).

All considered, I would probably prefer option 3 (group) and the combining of storage + folder selection.