Meteor UI helper with Meteor.users - meteor

Question

I have an app in which I'm using a template helper. I have the following code:
UI.registerHelper('ProfileNameByUserId', function(userid) {
console.log('Userid: ' + userid);
var user = Meteor.users.findOne({'_id': userid});
console.log.log('User:' + user);
return user.username
});
I'm calling this in my template as follows:
{{#each getDocuments}}
{{ProfileNameByUserId userid}}
{{/each}}
and in the template helper:
Template.documentsIndex.helpers({
getDocuments: function () {
return Documents.find({}, { sort: { createdAt: -1 }});
}
});
The publish and subscribe are as follows:
Routes.route('/documents', {
name: 'documents',
subscriptions: function (params, queryParams) {
this.register('documentsIndex', Meteor.subscribe('documents'));
},
action: function (params, queryParams) {
.....
});
}
});
Meteor.publish('documents', function () {
return Documents.find({})
});
I'm sure the userId is passed on, as a console.log statement shows the correct id. The issue is that the user is 'undefined' so it can't find the username.
I'm using SimpleSchema to define a users schema which looks as follows:
Users = Meteor.users;
Schema = {};
Schema.UserProfile = new SimpleSchema({
firstName: {
type: String,
optional: true
},
lastName: {
type: String,
optional: true
},
gender: {
type: String,
allowedValues: ['Male', 'Female'],
optional: true
},
});
Schema.User = new SimpleSchema({
username: {
type: String,
optional: true
},
emails: {
type: Array,
optional: true
},
"emails.$": {
type: Object
},
"emails.$.address": {
type: String,
regEx: SimpleSchema.RegEx.Email
},
"emails.$.verified": {
type: Boolean
},
createdAt: {
type: Date,
optional: true,
denyUpdate: true,
autoValue: function() {
if (this.isInsert) {
return new Date();
}
}
},
profile: {
type: Schema.UserProfile,
optional: true
},
services: {
type: Object,
optional: true,
blackbox: true
},
roles: {
type: [String],
optional: true
}
});
Meteor.users.attachSchema(Schema.User);
});
Replacing Meteor.users.findOne() in the template helper with Users.findOne() does not work either.
Any idea why user remains undefined?

Answer 1

You need to add a publication and subscription for the users that you want to show.
In the most general case in which all users are published:
Meteor.publish('allUsers', function () {
return Meteor.users.find();
});
Subscribe to this in your route and you will not have the user undefined in your helper.
Note that you should only publish the users that you need, but since I do not know you application structure I cannot give you a query for that.