About the automatic "cleanup" (deleting of value) when options change

(Special handling by the field model for fields of type "FieldsListPlugin")
checkboxes, list, radio, (imagelist, sql)

yes it is there

about remapping an old value to a new value,
there is no bug as there is no magic guessing of what you want to do

• just there is no User Interface to define such a remapping

no bug, this would be a new feature

thanks for answering.

Please, let me reply to your message:

We have lost hours of work (hundred of articles with a custom field value assigned) , and here nobody thought that changing a value will make losing all the work. Maybe it is not a bug... but it seems an issue.

I am not programmer, but i think "Remapping" or "User Interface" is not necessary. Just an "SQL search and replace" the old value for the new in the fields_values table, isn`t it?

Or at least a pop-up message like: "Modifying a value will make you lose all the articles associated with this value, are you sure?"

Once again, thanks for your time.

Or at least a pop-up message like: "Modifying a value will make you lose all the articles associated with this value, are you sure?"

I had same thought,

there is no warning that you will have data loss !
and without possibility to just re-edit the field's configuration and set the old value (it will be useless because values were deleted), it makes real damage (you will need to restore a website backup)

if there was a warning someone would prefer not to change (the anyway hidden value "emgland") and thus avoid data loss

To try to fix your problem (not the bug/feature), take a look at Regular Labs dbReplacer. This should make changing all those incorrect values much easier - it's a simple (but powerful!) search and replace.

It is very hard to detect if a value got updated. But I agree with @ggppdk , then there should be a warning shown that when the values got changed, it removes the assignments.

I agree and I will try to come up with a suitable message/alert

Instead of a message I was thinking why dont we make the Value readonly once it has been created. You would still be able to do the no-destructive edit of the text and to delete the entry.

Thoughts? @laoneo

This is very good idea to minimize user errors,

but i think it is complementary to the message which is still needed,
because there is still no warning that re-adding a deleted record will not make things work again ...

Maybe to avoid message completely,

Do the read-only thing suggested above
and
put a message when one clicks to delete the value record ?
"After you click save, value assignments of this value will be lost" or some other more good text

If you delete something then you expect it to be gone. Adding a message to
tell you that is superfluous

If you delete something then you expect it to be gone.

you are right,

but everybody makes mistakes,
because being a little tired, little sleepless or or whatever other reason

also how someone perceives this differs
e.g. example deleting a Joomla user does not cause a cascading deletion of user's content
in this case we do have deletion or related assignments (i mean someone may expect same pattern here)

also permanent deletions usually have a warning,

but i understand that deleting many values will be annoying unless the message is only shown once
also i understand that showing the message like i suggested above on delete button is currently not implemented

I guess readonly can work here.

Thanks @laoneo I will see if I can work it out

ok i failed at working out how to do it - lack of skills by me - sure someone else can do it though

@laoneo It would be great if we could get this fixed for J4 - I tried and failed :(

Having a short check, I don't think so there is a way to make list items read only. Only the whole field or nothing.

Thank you for raising this issue.

Joomla 3 is now in security only mode with no further bug fixes or new features.

As this issue doesn't relate to Joomla 4 it will now been closed.

If we are mistaken and this does apply to Joomla 4 please open a new issue (and reference this one if you wish) with updated details for testing in Joomla 4.
cc @zero-24