New field default value

[darrylhein]

If adding a new required button group field (for example) to an entry type and you set a default value, would it make sense to me to have that default value automatically apply to existing entries, probably on save?

The example is I have an existing site to which I add a new required field. When I go to save that entry (or one that it's in/on/within – not sure of the terminology) I can't because the field is required and requires me to go into each entry to set the field.

I'm sure there's a reason I'm not thinking of and this has problem been reasoned about already.

[brandonkelly]

Updating all the existing entries with the default value could be a very expensive, long-running operation, so it’s not something Craft can easily do automatically. You can do it using the resave/entries command, though:

php craft resave/entries --section=mySection --set=myFieldHandle --to=theDefaultValue --if-empty

[darrylhein]

Hmmm. I understand, though when you're making drastic changes while building a site this creates a lot of manual work. Maybe an option that would do this on all entries, setting all to their default value as part of the resave could be helpful.

[brandonkelly]

Fair point! I just made that a little easier for Craft 5.10+, with a new --to-default option for resave commands. (#18522)

With that, you could quickly set all elements’ field values to their default values with the following command:

php craft resave/all --with-fields=field1,field2,field3 --to-default --if-empty

[darrylhein]

Amazing! I'll try it out next time it comes up!