How do I change the Default Query of a Views Exposed Filter with hook_form_alter()?

Question

I searched for an entire day on this issue and found no working solutions that affect the "initial query" of an exposed form in Drupal 7.

I have a simple checkbox exposed as a select list; the options are All, 1, or 0. It defaults to All on default. I'm trying to change it to 0. With that said, I was able to successfully set the default value of my exposed form (doesn't affect the initial query) and rename the options with a custom module:

function MODULE_form_alter(&$form,&$form_state,$form_id) {
//dpm($form);
  if($form_id == 'views_exposed_form') {
    $form['field_checkbox']['#default_value'] = '0';
    $form['field_checkbox']['#options']['All'] = t('Both');
    $form['field_checkbox']['#options']['0'] = t('Unchecked');
    $form['field_checkbox']['#options']['1'] = t('Checked');
  }
}

I tried to interpret merlinofchaos' advice in the only relevant advice I could find on this (9 year old thread) and might not even be relevant to D7.

function MODULE_NAME_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) {
    //print $form['#id'];
    if($form['#id'] == 'EXPOSED_FORM_NAME') {
        if (!isset($_GET['EXPOSED_FILTER_NAME']))  {
            $form_state['input']['EXPOSED_FILTER_NAME'] = '0';
        }
    }
}

Though the above code changes the $form_state['input']['EXPOSED_FILTER_NAME'] variable from "All" to "0", it doesn't change the default query. I have dpm'd both $form and $form_state, but I don't know what needs to be changed. Any advice would be extremely appreciated!

Answer 1

Try this out with hook_views_pre_build

/**
 * Implements hook_views_pre_build().
 */
function MODULE_NAME_views_pre_build(&$view) {
    if ($view->name == 'VIEW_MACHINE_NAME') {
        //- Set the exposed filter to new value 
        $view->filter['EXPOSED_FILTER_NAME']->value = '0';
    }
}