Here is the problem :
I am currently programming a chatapp based on what i found on github (https://github.com/sasikanth513/chatDemo)
I am refactoring it with iron-router.
When I go to the page (clicking on the link) I get an existing chatroom (that's what I want)
When I refresh the page (F5) I get a new created chatroom ! (what i want is getting the existing chatroom ...)
Here is the code in ironrouter :
Router.route('/chatroom', {
name: 'chatroom',
data: function() {
var currentId = Session.get('currentId'); //id of the other person
var res=ChatRooms.findOne({chatIds:{$all:[currentId,Meteor.userId()]}});
console.log(res);
if(res){
Session.set("roomid",res._id);
}
else{
var newRoom= ChatRooms.insert({chatIds:[currentId, Meteor.userId()],messages:[]});
Session.set('roomid',newRoom);
}
}
});
You can find my github repo with the whole project : https://github.com/balibou/textr
Thanx a lot !
Your route data depends on Session variables which will be erased after a refresh. You have a few options but the easiest would be to put the room id directly into the route: '/chatroom/:_id'. Then you can use this.params._id to fetch the appropriate ChatRooms document. Note that you could still keep '/chatroom' for cases where the room doesn't exist, however you'd need to redirect to '/chatroom/:_id' after the insert.
In meteor, the Session object is empty when the client starts, and loading/refreshing the page via HTTP "restarts" the client. To deal with this issue, you could persist the user's correspondent id in a Meteor.user attribute, so that you could easily do:
Router.route('/chatroom', {
name: 'chatroom',
data: function() {
var currentId = Meteor.user().profile.correspondentId;
var res=ChatRooms.findOne({chatIds:{$all:[currentId,Meteor.userId()]}});
console.log(res);
if(res){
Session.set("roomid",res._id);
}
else{
var newRoom= ChatRooms.insert({chatIds:[currentId, Meteor.userId()],messages:[]});
Session.set('roomid',newRoom);
}
}
});
This would work, with the proper permissions, but I would recommend not allowing the direct update of that value on the client (I don't know if you want users to be able to override their correspondentId). So if you want to secure this process, replace all that code with a server method call, where your updates are safer.
Another (and more common case) solution was given by David Weldon, if you don't mind having ids in your URL (and therefore not a single url)
Related
I have a page that lets you edit user data. I'm using FlowRouter for the routing and it can be found on the route /employees/:id.
I need to update the detail form when data changes on the server and leave the route if it was deleted by other client.
I decided to use Tracker.autorun which informs me whenever the data changes. The previous user info is stored on the template so it's easy to tell if the record was deleted.
Template.UpdateEmployee.onCreated(function () {
const self = this;
self.subscribe('user', FlowRouter.getParam('id'));
self.autorun(function () {
const _id = FlowRouter.getParam('id');
const user = Meteor.users.findOne({_id});
if(!user && self.user)
FlowRouter.go('/employees');
self.user = user;
if(!user)
return;
user.email = user.emails[0].address;
$('.ui.form').form('set values',user);
});
});
And lastly in the onRendered callback I'm checking if the data was set on template as I believe not doing so could lead to data being available before the template is rendered and hence values wouldn't get set properly. Is this correct?
Template.UpdateEmployee.onRendered(function () {
if(this.user){
user.email = user.emails[0].address;
$('.ui.form').form('set values',user);
}
});
Are there any pitfalls to this solution?
I can see a couple drawbacks inherently. The first one is doing a find query on the client. Typically you would want to return data from the server using Meteor publish and subscribe.
The second is you are passing the key to find the data over the URL. This can be spoofed by other users for them to find that users data.
Lastly if you are doing a find on the user object, I assume you might be storing data there. This is generally bad practice. If you need to store user data with their profile, it's best to create a new collection and publish/subscribe what you need.
I'm in the process of learning meteor. I followed the tutorial to create microscope. If some one submits a post meteor will re render the template for all users. This could be very annoying if there are hundreds of posts then the user will come back to the top of the page and loose track of where he was. I want to implement something similar to what facebook has. When a new post is submitted template isn't rendered rather, a button or link will appear. Clicking it will cause the template to re-render and show the new posts.
I was thinking of using observeChanges on the collection to detect any changes and it does stop the page from showing new posts but only way to show them is to reload the page.
Meteor.publish('posts', function(options) {
var self = this, postHandle = null;
var initializing = true;
postHandle = Posts.find({}, options).observeChanges({
added: function(id, post) {
if (initializing){
self.added('posts', id, post);
}
},
changed: function(id, fields) {
self.changed('posts', id, fields);
}
});
self.ready();
initializing = false;
self.onStop(function() { postHandle.stop(); });
});
Is this the right path to take? If yes, how do I alert the user of new posts? Else, what would be a better way to implement this?
Thank you
This is a tricky question but also valuable as it pertains to a design pattern that is applicable in many instances. One of the key aspects is wanting to know that there is new data but not wanting to show it (yet) to the user. We can also assume that when the user does want to see the data, they probably don't want to wait for it to be loaded into the client (just like Facebook). This means that the client still needs to cache the data as it arrives, just not display it immediately.
Therefore, you probably don't want to restrict the data displayed in the publication - because this won't send the data to the client. Rather, you want to send all the (relevant) data to the client and cache it there until it is ready.
The easiest way involves having a timestamp in your data to work from. You can then couple this with a Reactive Variable to only add new documents to your displayed set when that Reactive Variable changes. Something like this (code will probably be in different files):
// Within the template where you want to show your data
Template.myTemplate.onCreated(function() {
var self = this;
var options = null; // Define non-time options
// Subscribe to the data so everything is loaded into the client
// Include relevant options to limit data but exclude timestamps
self.subscribe("posts", options);
// Create and initialise a reactive variable with the current date
self.loadedTime = new ReactiveVar(new Date());
// Create a reactive variable to see when new data is available
// Create an autorun for whenever the subscription changes ready() state
// Ignore the first run as ready() should be false
// Subsequent false values indicate new data is arriving
self.newData = new ReactiveVar(false);
self.autorun(function(computation) {
if(!computation.firstRun) {
if(!self.subscriptionsReady()) {
self.newData.set(true);
}
}
});
});
// Fetch the relevant data from that subscribed (cached) within the client
// Assume this will be within the template helper
// Use the value (get()) of the Reactive Variable
Template.myTemplate.helpers({
displayedPosts = function() {
return Posts.find({timestamp: {$lt: Template.instance().loadedTime.get()}});
},
// Second helper to determine whether or not new data is available
// Can be used in the template to notify the user
newData = function() {
return Template.instance().newData.get();
});
// Update the Reactive Variable to the current time
// Assume this takes place within the template helper
// Assume you have button (or similar) with a "reload" class
Template.myTemplate.events({
'click .reLoad' = function(event, template) {
template.loadedTime.set(new Date());
}
});
I think this is the simplest pattern to cover all of the points you raise. It gets more complicated if you don't have a timestamp, you have multiple subscriptions (then need to use the subscription handles) etc. Hope this helps!
As Duncan said in his answer, ReactiveVar is the way to go. I've actually implemented a simple facebook feed page with meteor where I display the public posts from a certain page. I use infinite scroll to keep adding posts to the bottom of the page and store them in a ReactiveVar. Check the sources on github here and the live demo here. Hope it helps!
There are multiple examples on publish/subscribe but not clear on what is the best practice for storing custom data in the in-built "users" collection in Meteor (especially in the new possibility of template specific collections).
For example, I need to store user browse history - something that is accessible through Meteor.user().settings.history.lastvisited[]
The challenge is:
Is any special publish / subscribe required for the above? (the
reason being, I am assuming the users collection is already
published and available on client side - so do we need another?)
How to take care of edge cases where user is new and hence settings.history object may not be defined? Can we have a special publish that automatically takes care of creating an empty object if the settings is undefined? How to do it?
I did this :
// server side
Meteor.publish('userSettings', function (maxRows) {
if (this.userId) {
return Meteor.users.find({ _id: this.userId }, { fields: {'settings':1}});
}
this.ready();
});
//client side
Meteor.subscribe('userSettings');
But I do not see anyway how I can access the published "userSettings" object on the client side - what is missing ??
You can create a field and set it to false/'', on each user you create using the accountsOnCreateUser method.
Accounts.onCreateUser(function(options, user) {
//this function gets called each time a user has been created on the Meteor.user collection
if (options.profile)
user.settings = ''; //this is just and example.
return user;
})
Now the publish looks ok, but in order to get it work im always use a Tracker.autorun function.
Tracker.autorun(function(){
Meteor.subscribe('userSettings');
})
Why the autorun? well if you don't call the auto run here, the subscription get only called 1 time when the apps loads, and not when the user documents.
Take care of yours deny/allow permissions, check this meteor:common mistakes post on the Profile editing section
Also the subscribe function have a callback function. Meteor.subscribe(name, [arg1, arg2...], [callbacks]), so you can do something like this.
var myUserSubscription = Meteor.subscribe('userSettings',function(){
console.log("ok im here on the client side")
console.log("this user subscription is ready " + myUserSubscription.ready())
})
console.log("outside the subscription why not? " + myUserSubscription.ready();
About ready();
True if the server has marked the subscription as ready. A reactive
data source.
I want to store information for every logged in user in my meteor app, such as their profile picture, bio, ect. But if I try to do something like Meteor.user().picLink = "..."; it appears to get erased on every subsequent call to Meteor.user(). I assume this means I'm not supposed to store extra data directly on the user object like that.
The only response to that that I can think of is to have a separate collection with user data in it. But that seems like it would be hard to keep consistent with Meteor.users. Is there a better way?
All user accounts come with an automatically published profile field which you can update like so:
var userId = Meteor.userId();
var url = 'http://example.com/kittens.jpg';
Meteor.users.update(userId, {$set: {'profile.photo': url});
That will update the underlying database and persist across connections.
As I point out here you should be aware that the profile object is currently editable by default even when the insecure package has been removed. This means any user can open up the console and modify his/her profile.
A better approach is to deny the updates and to use a method instead:
client
var url = 'http://example.com/kittens.jpg';
Meteor.call('update.photo', url);
server
Meteor.users.deny({
update: function() {return true;}
});
Meteor.methods({
'update.photo': function(url) {
check(url, String);
Meteor.users.update(this.userId, {$set: {'profile.photo': url}});
}
});
I am seeing a repeatable issue where a user authenticates ("logs in") with a Meteor server, and then a client subscription that depends on userId is updated (and dependent UI templates reactively update) before Meteor.userId() registers the successful login.
For example, in this code snippet, the assert will throw:
var coll = new Meteor.Collection("test");
if (Meteor.isServer) {
Meteor.publish('mineOrPublic', function () {
// Publish public records and those owned by subscribing user
return coll.find({owner: { $in: [ this.userId, null ]}});
});
}
if (Meteor.isClient) {
var sub = Meteor.subscribe('mineOrPublic');
var cursor = coll.find({});
cursor.observe({
added: function (doc) {
if (doc.owner) {
// This should always be true?!
assert(doc.owner === Meteor.userId());
}
}
});
}
Analogous to the added function above, if I write a template helper that checks Meteor.userId(), it will see a value of null, even when it is invoked with a data context of a document with an owner.
There is apparently a race condition between Meteor collection Pub/Sub and the Account userId update mechanisms. It seems to me that Meteor.userId() should always be updated before any subscriptions update based on a change in this.userId in a server publish function, but for some reason the opposite usually seems to be true (that is, the assert in the code above will usually throw).
The reason I care is because I have packages that depend on obtaining a valid Meteor Authentication token (using Accounts._storedLoginToken()) on the client for use in securing HTTP requests for files stored on the Meteor server. And the authentication token isn't correct until Meteor.userId() is. So the flow of events usually goes something like this:
User logs in
Publish function on server reruns based on the change in this.userId.
Client begins receiving new documents corresponding to the change in userId.
UI Template reactively updates to add DOM elements driven by new documents
Some of the DOM elements are <img> tags with src= values that depend on the data context.
HTTP requests are triggered and ultimately fail with 403 (forbidden) errors because the required authentication cookie hasn't been set yet.
Meteor.userId() finally updates on the client, and code reactively runs to set the authentication cookie
Helpers in the template that depend on a session variable set in the cookie update code are rerun, but the DOM doesn't change, because the URLs in the <img> tags don't change.
Because the DOM doesn't change, the tags don't retry their failed attempts to load the images.
Everything settles down, and the user has to manually reload the page to get their images to appear.
I've come up with two possible approaches to work around this issue:
In the template helper that generates the URL for the <img> tag, always append a dummy query string such as: "?time=" + new Date().getTime(). This causes the DOM to change every time the helper is called and fixes the problem, but it screws-up browser caching and if not coordinated will cause some assets to unnecessarily load multiple times, etc.
In every template helper that touches document data add a test of:
if (this.owner && this.owner !== Meteor.userId()) {
// Perhaps Meteor.loggingIn() could be used above?
// Invalid state, output placeholder
} else {
// Valid state, output proper value for template
}
I really hope someone knows of a less kludgy way to work around this. Alternatively, if consensus arises that this is a bug and Meteor's behavior is incorrect in this respect. I will happily file an issue on Github. I mostly really enjoy working with Meteor, but this is the kind of gritty annoyance that grinds in the gears of "it just works".
Thanks for any and all insights.
After trying lots of things, this variation on the example code in the OP seems to consistently solve the race condition, and I find this an acceptable resolution, unlike my initial attempted workarounds.
I still feel that this kind of logic should be unnecessary and welcome other approaches or opinions on whether Meteor's behavior in the OP sample code is correct or erroneous. If consensus emerges in the comments that Meteor's behavior is wrong, I will create an issue on Github for this.
Thanks for any additional feedback or alternative solutions.
var coll = new Meteor.Collection("test");
if (Meteor.isServer) {
Meteor.publish('mineOrPublic', function (clientUserId) {
if (this.userId === clientUserId) {
// Publish public records and those owned by subscribing user
return coll.find({owner: { $in: [ this.userId, null ]}});
} else {
// Don't return user owned docs unless client sub matches
return coll.find({owner: null});
}
});
}
if (Meteor.isClient) {
Deps.autorun(function () {
// Resubscribe anytime userId changes
var sub = Meteor.subscribe('mineOrPublic', Meteor.userId());
});
var cursor = coll.find({});
cursor.observe({
added: function (doc) {
if (doc.owner) {
// This should always be true?!
assert(doc.owner === Meteor.userId());
}
}
});
}
This code works by giving the server publish function the information it needs to recognize when it is running ahead of the client's own login state, thereby breaking the race condition.
I think this is something that Meteor should do automatically: clients should not see documents based on changes to this.userId in a publish function until after the client Meteor.userId() has been updated.
Do others agree?
I tried with this code that works on server too. In association with FileCollection package.
if (Meteor.isServer) {
CurrentUserId = null;
Meteor.publish(null, function() {
CurrentUserId = this.userId;
});
}
....
OrgFiles.allow({
read: function (userId, file) {
if (CurrentUserId !== file.metadata.owner) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}
...