Curated distro for Constellation

Constellation is an extensible dev console for Meteor

Installation

meteor add babrahams:constellation

Demo

Constellation demo site that steps you through basic use of most the packages included in this distro

What you get

This distro includes the constellation base functionality:

• interface for inserting, updating, removing documents in Mongo collections (one tab for each collection)
• tab with an actions log and undo/redo for any changes to documents made through the Constellation console
• account tab showing the current signed in user and also for impersonating other users
• fullscreen switch
• config tab for hiding and showing any tabs in the console

It also includes packages for the following optional extra tabs:

• "Temple" - a tab that gives you a visual look behind the scenes at your app's templates and their data contexts
• a tab that shows the current subscriptions and the parameters used when subscribing
• autopublish switch
• a tab where you can manipulate Session keys and values (along with other ReactiveDict instances in the global scope)
• toggle console size (make it tiny)
• position the console left/right, up/down (in case it's covering the wrong part of your app)

Not included, but may be of use to you

• Velocity HTML reporter in your Constellation console
• "DDP Inspector" - for keeping an eye on the data flow between client and server
• Schema generator - when typing out your schema gets too onerous

Notes

• This package just includes other packages.
• You can achieve the same effect as adding this package by adding individual packages from atmosphere. The following command will achieve a similar result to adding this package:

  meteor add constellation:console constellation:subscriptions constellation:autopublish constellation:session constellation:tiny constellation:position babrahams:temple lai:ddp-inspector

Advantages of using a distro like this

• easy install: meteor add babrahams:constellation
• no clutter: when you type meteor list - you don't see a whole lot of Constellation-related packages, just babrahams:constellation

Disadvantages of using a distro like this

• you can't remove individual packages - i.e. you lose the ability to remove constellation tabs from the command line, although you can always hide tabs you don't want using the "Config ..." panel
• we don't really want a whole lot of distros like this cluttering Atmosphere, but I thought there should be one curated package that gives you most of the useful Constellation functionality out of the box
• meteor update isn't going to get you the latest individual package versions unless this distro is up to date (if its not, open an issue!)

Alternative approach to installation and configuration

To get a clean meteor list but more control over which packages are included in your Constellation console:

1. Clone this repo into your app's /packages directory
2. meteor add babrahams:constellation
3. Open package.js and
   • remove lines such as api.use('constellation:tiny@0.3.0'); if you never want to use the "Tiny" tab
   • add lines such as api.use('constellation:velocity@0.3.0'); if you want to use the "Velocity" tab

Note: If you do this, you're on you own with regards to package version management!