CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptapimeteoretsy
neonbrown82
neonbrown82

Reputation: 3

Meteor: Data from External API call not rendering

I am relatively new to Meteor, and I'm trying to create a web store for my sister-in-law that takes data from her existing Etsy store and puts a custom skin on it. I've defined all of my Meteor.methods to retrieve the data, and I've proofed the data with a series of console.log statements... So, the data is there, but it won't render on the screen. Here is an example of some of the code on the server side:

Meteor.methods({

  ...

    'getShopSections': function() {
      this.unblock();
      var URL = baseURL + "/sections?api_key="+apiKey;
      var response = Meteor.http.get(URL).data.results;
      return response;
    }

  ...

});

This method returns an array of Object. A sample bit of JSON string from one of the returned Objects from the array:

{
  active_listing_count: 20,
  rank: 2,
  shop_section_id: 1******0,
  title: "Example Title",
  user_id: 2******7
}

After fetching this data without a hitch, I was ready to make the call from the client side, and I tried and failed in several different ways before a Google search landed me at this tutorial here: https://dzone.com/articles/integrating-external-apis-your

On the client side, I have a nav.js file with the following bit of code, adapted from the above tutorial:

Template.nav.rendered = function() {
    Meteor.call('getShopSections', function(err, res) {
      Session.set('sections', res);
      return res;
    });
};
Template.nav.helpers({
    category: function() {
      var sections = Session.get('sections');
      return sections;
    }
});

And a sample call from inside my nav.html template...

<ul>
  {{#each category}}
    <li>{{category.title}}</li>
  {{/each}}
</ul>

So, there's a few things going on here that I'm unsure of. First and foremost, the DOM is not rendering any of the category.title String despite showing the appropriate number of li placeholders. Secondly, before I followed the above tutorial, I didn't define a Session variable. Considering that the list of shop categories should remain static once the template is loaded, I didn't think it was necessary from what I understand about Session variables... but for some reason this was the difference between the template displaying a single empty <li> tag versus a number of empty <li>'s equal to category.length --- so, even though I can't comprehend why the Session variable is needed in this instance, it did bring me one perceived step closer to my goal... I have tried a number of console.log statements on the client side, and I am 100% sure the data is defined and available, but when I check the source code in my Developer Tools window, the DOM just shows a number of empty li brackets.

Can any Meteor gurus explain why 1) the DOM is not rendering any of the titles, and 2) if the Session variable indeed necessary? Please let me know if more information is needed, and I'll be very happy to provide it. Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 256

Answers (1)

danSiebes
danSiebes

Reputation: 384

You set the data context when you use #each, so simply use:

<li>{{title}}</li>

If a Session is the right type of reactive variable to use here or not is hard to determine without knowing what you are doing but my rough guess is that a Mini Mongo collection may be better suited for what it appears you are doing.

To get you started on deciding the correct type of reactive variable to use for this head over to the full Meteor documentation and investigate: collections, sessions, and reactive vars.

Edit: To step back and clarify a bit, a Template helper is called a reactive computation. Reactive computations inside of helpers will only execute if they are used in their respective templates AND if you use a reactive variable inside of the computation. There are multiple types of reactive variable, each with their own attributes. Your code likely didn't work at all before you used Session because you were not using a reactive variable.

Upvotes: 0

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