Many categories & max_execution_time problems

Front-end code for your benefit.

##Unfortunately connections does not currently allow us (as far as I know) to get a list of all the categories, and we need them. So we're going to fetch them manually. This is likely to break at some point when the plugin's database gets changed in an update.

//set up wpdb class
global $wpdb;

//get parent-child relationships
$sql = "SELECT <code>term_id</code>,<code>parent</code> FROM <code>&quot;.$wpdb->prefix.&quot;connections_term_taxonomy</code>";
$taxonomy = $wpdb->get_results($sql);

//grab names
$sql = "SELECT * FROM <code>&quot;.$wpdb->prefix.&quot;connections_terms</code>";
$names_raw = $wpdb->get_results($sql);

//organize this a little better
foreach($names_raw as $name){
	$names[$name->term_id]['name'] = htmlentities($name->name,ENT_QUOTES);
	$names[$name->term_id]['slug'] = htmlentities($name->slug,ENT_QUOTES);
}

//sort through the taxonomies, grab their names, and build a list
$tier = array();
foreach($taxonomy as $tax){
	//make sure we have a name for the parent (otherwise it's root)
	if(!empty($names[$tax->parent]['slug']) && isset($names[$tax->parent]['slug'])){
		$tier[$tax->parent]['children'][$tax->term_id] = $names[$tax->term_id];
	}else{
		$tier[$tax->term_id] = $names[$tax->term_id];
	}
}

//now that we're all organized, let's make a dropdown!
unset($tier[1]); //remove uncategorized
$tier = array_filter($tier);
echo '<form method="get">';
echo '<select name="state" onchange="this.form.submit()">';
echo '<option value="0">Select...</option>';
//create our options (state level)
foreach($tier as $category_id => $state_data){
	$selected = '';
	if(intval($_GET['state'])===$category_id)$selected = 'selected="selected"';
	echo '<option value="'.$category_id.'" '.$selected.'>'.$state_data['name'].'</option>';
}
echo '</select>';

//if we know the state, get counties
if(isset($_GET['state']) && !empty($_GET['state']) && is_numeric($_GET['state'])){
	echo '<select name="county" onchange="this.form.submit()">';
	echo '<option value="0">Select...</option>';
	foreach($tier[$_GET['state']]['children'] as $id => $county){
		$selected = '';
		if(intval($_GET['county'])===$id)$selected = 'selected="selected"';
		echo '<option value="'.$id.'" '.$selected.'>'.$county['name'].'</option>';

	}
	echo "</select>";
}

echo '</form>';

if(isset($_GET['county']) && !empty($_GET['county'])){
	echo do_shortcode('[connections category="'.intval($_GET['county']).'"]');
}

Thanks for the reply,
Actually all three pages you listed have load speed issues with this many categories. Don’t worry about adding code to support what I did on the front-end (chained select). I just need the plugin to be faster on the back-end so that entries and categories can be managed properly.

Prior to increasing the load time:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /wp-content/plugins/connections/includes/class.terms.php on line 144

Here’s the page load times:

Here’s the dashboard as a control:

As you can see the categories are adding a good 30+ seconds of load time.

I suppose I don’t really see how this helps you but here you go?

CSVs as requested
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8244471/wp_connections_term_relationships.csv
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8244471/wp_connections_term_taxonomy.csv
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8244471/wp_connections_terms.csv

Roughly 2 seconds load time total