Custom cascading dropdowns in AEM metadata schema

[BlackBox2]

Hi all, 

We have a requirement to show the cascading dropdown in AEM metadata UI editor. The dropdown values are exceed more than 15k+ values, same values are saved into node and showing it in UI which resulted slowness of metadata UI page. 

We are trying to reduce the slowness and improve the performance by adding the values in Json instead of node values. Can you provide any other suggestions to improve the performance if you faced earlier. 

[avesh_narang]

I comprehend your issue, and there are a few approaches you can take to address it:

1. Initially, the dropdown should display only a default value upon loading, rather than showing all available options. The values will populate the dropdown only when the user or author clicks on that specific field, which will help keep your metadata UI page responsive.
2. Consider implementing a pagination for the dropdown values; for example, load the first 100 values, and if the user/uthor scrolls down further within the dropdown, load another set of 100 values, and continue this process.

This strategy can significantly improve the performance of your metadata UI page.

Thanks 

[giuseppebag]

Having 15,000 values can be overwhelming and may cause the user interface to slow down. In this situation, it's worth considering if you can group the values. If grouping is possible, you can utilize Cascading Metadata, which allows users to create cascading field rules to establish contextual relationships between different pieces of metadata. 

Assuming your values range from 1 to 15,000, you could create 15 groups, such as 1-1,000, 1,000-2,000, 2,000-3,000, and so on. This way, the other dropdown will display only a subset of values based on the selected group.