Mastering Meteor: Powerful Reactive Applications with Full-Stack JavaScript

Master one of the most exciting full-stack JavaScript platforms to build powerful, reactive applications

This course gets right under the hood of the Meteor platform, demonstrating how to take advantage of its powerful development engine to build exciting, versatile applications.

We start by carefully designing an application structure, building a single page layout with multipage routing, and adding authentication. We'll expose database data, and then look at how to work with subscriptions and queries. Then, we dive into the options for templating, with a look at dynamic Blaze templates and the Spacebars templating language. You'll learn event handling and then test our application using Cucumber and Jasmine. After that, we deploy our application locally on the Meteor server, and then to Amazon to set it up for frequent updates and hot code deployment. Finally, you'll learn how to work with third-party integrations, and set up REST endpoints to interact with other external services such as PayPal.

This course will help you to work at your own pace while mastering the patterns used to define all of the critical pieces of a web application.

Who this course is for

If you've already played around with Meteor and want to take that next step toward building complex, feature-rich applications with the platform, this course gives you that opportunity. All that is expected is a working knowledge of JavaScript.

What you will learn from this course

• Develop a complex, feature-rich application ready for production by the end of the video
• Define dynamic layouts and implement single page routing for smooth, responsive applications
• Secure your application by implementing authentication and securing data on the server
• Publish database information from collections to expose it from the server
• Build reactive templates and reusable components using Spacebars
• Work with helpers and events to make applications dynamic and reactive to user activity
• Test with Cucumber and Jasmine, employing continuous integration testing
• Integrate a third-party framework like PayPal
• Deploy your application on various platforms: locally from the Meteor server and as an Amazon instance
• Incorporate RESTful service endpoints to connect to external services
• Troubleshoot development on the client and server

Table of Contents

1. Introduction and Structure
   
   • The Course Overview
   • What Is Meteor?
   • Scaffolding


2. Routing and Layout
   
   • Single Page Applications
   • Routing URLs
   • Callback Methods


3. Roles and Authorization
   
   • Authentication
   • User Profile and Avatars
   • Add Roles and Authorization


4. Collections and Publications
   
   • Defining a Collection
   • Forcing Server-side Operations
   • Hooks, Helpers, and Relationships


5. Subscriptions and Queries
   
   • Template-based Subscriptions
   • Route-based Subscriptions
   • Complex Query Syntax


6. Templates and Spacebars
   
   • Template Expressions
   • Reusable Components
   • Helper Functions
   • Using Variables for Application State


7. Helpers and Events
   
   • Data Context and Helpers
   • Best Practices
   • Template Events


8. Server Methods
   
   • Invoking Methods from the Client
   • Securing Data on the Server
   • Validation
   • CRUD Functions


9. Testing Your Application
   
   • Types of Testing
   • Writing Useful Tests


10. Deploying Your Application
    
    • Deploying Locally
    • Deploying to the Meteor Server
    • Deploying to the Amazon EC2 Instance
    • Update Your Deployed Application


11. Troubleshooting Meteor
    
    • Client Debugging
    • Server Debugging


12. Integrating Other Frameworks
    
    • Adding PayPal Integration
    • Connecting to a REST Endpoint
    • More in Meteor

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this course to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this course is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this course. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this course by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

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