Making a template helper reactive in Meteor

Question

I am building a chat application and on my \"new chats\" page I have a list of contacts, which you can select one by one by tapping them (upon which I apply a CSS selected class

Answer 1

You could use a local Meteor.Collection cursor as a reactive data source:

var NewChatters = new Meteor.Collection("null");

Template:

Event:

Template.contactsLayout.events({
  'click #contactItem': function (e) {
    NewChatters.insert({username: this.username});
  }
});

Helper:

Template.newChatDetails.helpers({
  newChatters: function() { return NewChatters.find(); }
});