How to use angular-meteor helpers and Meteor.methods together - meteor

Question

I use a bunch of helper methods in my project. Some of them require to load the whole collection into the client due the restriction of the api on client side (the distinct function!). I googled the problem and found Meteor.methods as solution.
Can I use helpers (like this.helpers) into Meteor methods? Or how should I dynamically update my data in the frontend?
Can someone give me an example?
Additional information:
class View2 {
constructor($interval, $scope, $reactive) {
'ngInject';
$reactive(this).attach($scope);
this.helpers({
getOrderNumber(){
this.tempVar = Kafkadata.find().fetch();
this.tempVar2 = _.pluck(this.tempVar, 'orderNumber');
this.tempVar3 = _.uniq(tempVar2, false);
return this.tempVar3;
},
});
}
This is an example for a helpers query. Currently, this code runs client-side. I get ALL orders(tempvar) and then remove ALL data except the ordernumbers(tempvar2). At the end I remove all multiple ordernumbers. ordernumber is not an unique value. Here is an example from one of the collections:
{"orderNumber":"f2a3ed95-fcc3-4da0-9b3f-32cf5ed087f8","value":12480,"booleanValue":false,"intValue":12480,"doubleValue":0,"status":"GOOD","itemName":"MILLING_SPEED","timestamp":1479145734448,"_id":{"_str":"5824f4bc7ff3f0199861f11d"}}
I want to use functions like db.collection.distinct(). But they only work server-side. I think I must use Meteor.methods()to make this thing server-side. But what about this helpers function? How do they work on Meteor.methods()?
EDIT2:
my test:
client-side:
folder:myProject/imports/ui/view1
class View1 {
constructor($interval, $scope, $reactive) {
'ngInject';
$reactive(this).attach($scope);
this.helpers({
// some code
getTestData(){
Meteor.call('allTestData',function(error, result){
if(error){
console.log("error");
}else{
return result;
}
});
}
}); //end of contructor
// this is my testfunction, which is bound to a button!
testFunction(){
Meteor.call('allTestData',function(error, result){
if(error){
alert('Error');
}else{
console.log(result);
}
});
}
on the server-side:
folder:myProject/server/main.js
Meteor.methods({
allTestData:()=>{
var results=Kafkadata.find().count();
console.log(results);
return results;
},
});
and this is my view1.html:
//some code
<md-button ng-click="view1.testFunction()"> It works!</md-button>
<h1>{{view1.getTestData}}</h1>
Why does the button work, but not the helper?

Answer 1

Even though .distinct is supported by Mongo, Meteor does not expose it, even on the server. You just have to use _.uniq as your example shows, but for performance reasons it's better if it runs on the server.
Below is an example of a helper that I use:
aweek: () => {
if (debug)
console.log("Querying weekly appointments for "+this.selectedWeek.format("Do MMMM"));
var weekApts = Appointments.find(
{start: {$gte: new Date(this.getReactively('this.selectedWeek').clone().day(1)),
$lt: new Date(this.getReactively('this.selectedWeek').clone().endOf('week'))},
elderid: Meteor.userId()
}).fetch();
return utils.services.getAWeek(weekApts,utils.data.elderTimeFormat);
},
Note the use of this.getReactively('this.selectedWeek') in the code... basically this tells Meteor to run this helper reactively, so if the value of this.selectedWeek changes, the helper will get re-run. So when I click on a week in the calendar and update the variable, it runs my helper again to get the data.
The utils.services.getAWeek() function does some calculation and formatting on the array of data that makes is easier to display.
If you create a Meteor Method to do processing, I would make it update a collection with its results, and then your helper on the client will update automatically. Best make the technology do the work for you :)