Easily add Server pages to your meteor project.

Meteor is great at building sophisticated Single Page Applications. But if the application also has traditional (informational) pages - fast load, seo friendly, multipage sections - it is surprisingly difficult to do.

Server Pages - solves this by supporting

1. managing templates - just as they are managed on the client
2. serving static files - from a folder (using ideas from williamledoux:static-server)
3. preventing restart on every save in development - but autoloading on refresh.
4. rendering along with head sections. (using SSR - thanks to meteorhacks:ssr )
5. getting userId on server side - using a token-cookie linked to userId. To be used for customization only - not for any sensitive information or workflow.

Installation

meteor add viloma:server-pages

Server Side Routes

These can be defined using Iron:Router - note that The "where: server" - is Important!

if(Meteor.isServer){
    Router.route('/event/:evtid', function() {
        var evt = Events.findOne({_id: this.params.evtid});
      ServerPages.render("eventpage", {e: evt}, this.response);
    }, {where:'server'});
}

Server Side Static files and Templates

You place need to place static files and templates under .spages folder under project root folder -

projectroot/.spages/public - for static files projectroot/.spages/templates - for templates

• All the files under /.spages/public - are served from url /files/ .
• All templates under /.spages/templates - are loaded for rendering
• changes to files in the .spages folder - do not cause meteor to restart - making for a much better development workflow.
• templates changes are still picked up on page refresh.
• Static files and templates are packaged and included in the build.

sample templates

<template name='eventpage'> 
	<img src='/files/images/logo.jpg' />
    ..... 
</template>
<template name='head'> 
    <script ... > <link ... > This is common head tag for all pages 
</template>
<template name='head-eventpage'> 
    <meta ... > head elements for eventpage template go here  
</template>

on the server pages - get the indicative logged in user id.

• sometimes when showing static pages - you need minor customizations for a user
• you can get the indicative users using the api ServerPages.getIndicativeUser(this.request)

ServerPages.getIndicativeUser(this.request)
ServerPages.getIndicativeUserId(this.request)

**This should NEVER be used for any sensitive information or for transactions **. Those should happen over DDP in meteor SPA pages.

lastly if you dont want to use .spages folder - but just want to compile a template - put it in private folder

ServerPages.compileTemplate(Assets.getText('filename.txt'))

• meteorhacks:ssr - rendering blaze and jade templates on server side.
• staticserver - rendering static files from server [@thomasfuchs].

License

MIT