meteor-helpers

This package implements a simple namespacing pattern which you can use to keep your global helpers organized and easily accessible.

Getting started

Start by adding the package to your meteor project

meteor add anti:helpers

Then, create a global namespace object which we are going to use to define our helpers:

MyHelpers = new AntiHelpers();

The code should probably go to your lib directory, to make sure it loads before the other js files and the MyHelpers object is easily accessible everywhere. Now, you add new helpers by calling define method of MyHelpers object

MyHelpers.define('capitalize', function (value) {
  return value.toString().toUpperCase();
});

MyHelpers.define('createdAt', function () {
  return moment(this.createdAt).format('YYYY/MM/DD');
});

To make the helpers available from your templates code, you need to register them

MyHelpers.registerAs('$');

You can do that at anytime, so there's no need to wait until you're done with defining your helpers. Now, both capitalize and createdAt can be used like this

<template name="post">
{{#with post}}
  <h1>{{$.capitalize ./title}}</h1>
  <h2>{{$.createdAt}}</h2>
  <p>{{./content}}</p>
{{/with}}
</template>

You can also access your helper from your javascript code like this

MyHelpers.capitalize('text');

They're not properties of the MyHelpers object, instead they belong to it's prototype. This implies that define and registerAs are reserved words.

Why do I need this?

You may want to use this pattern when your application grows large and it slowly becomes hard to maintain all the global helpers you've implemented over time. There are several benefits of using anit:helpers to manage them:

1. You can naturally split your global helpers into several groups, each using their own namespace.
2. Writing {{$.createdAt}} is more expressive than {{createdAt}}. If we use the former, it's evident that we are dealing with a global helper, while in the latter case it's not even clear if this is a helper or data context property.
3. The helpers are easily accessible from both javascript code and within you templates.

Beyond basics (experimental)

You can also use AntiHelpers in reactive mode:

MyHelpers = new AntiHelpers({ reactive: true });

When reactive flag is used, the helpers can re-render themselves when you change their implementation. This provides a useful abstraction layer, when you want to have a group of helpers that change their behavior based on application, but you don't really want to embed that login into your UI implementation.