Meteor : subscribe to collection subset & collection total count

Question

Here is my issue :

I'm subscribing to a subset of a Collection for "infinite pagination" in iron-router (like the Discover Meteor example) :

ApplicationsListController = RouteController.extend({
   template: 'applicationsList',
   increment: 10,
   limit: function(){
       return parseInt(this.params.applicationsLimit) || this.increment;
   },
   findOptions: function(){
       return {sort: {name: 1}, limit: this.limit()};
   },
   subscriptions: function(){
     this.applicationsSub = Meteor.subscribe('applications', this.findOptions()) ;
   },
   applications: function(){
     return Applications.find({}, this.findOptions());  
   },
   data: function(){
       var hasMore = this.applications().fetch().length === this.limit();
       var nextPath = this.route.path({applicationsLimit: this.limit() + this.increment});
       return {
         applications: this.applications(),
         ready: this.applicationsSub.ready,
         nextPath: hasMore ? nextPath : null
       };
   }
});

//(...)

this.route('applicationsList', {
       path: '/applications/:applicationsLimit?',
       controller: ApplicationsListController
});

I'm publishing it well, no problem there. But, on the same page, I also need the total count of the entire collection (not only the subset). I publish it like that :

Meteor.publish('applications', function(options){
   return Applications.find({}, options);
});

Meteor.publish('applicationsCount', function(){
    return Applications.find().count();
});

But there is something I guess I did not understand. I need to use the total count in my template, but I just can't see how to subscribe to "just a number", without creating a new collection (which I don't want to do).

I've seen the 'counts-for-room' example on Meteor Doc, but it seems that it is far from what I need (I don't have room with message in it, I just need to count my applications without getting them all on client).

Thanks a lot, I hope I was clean enough. Have a great day.

Answer 1

Thanks to Ethann I made it work.

First I installed the publish-counts package

$ meteor add tmeasday:publish-counts

As Ethann said, I published the count on my server\publications.js

Meteor.publish('applicationsCount', function() {
  Counts.publish(this, 'applicationsCount', Applications.find());
});

And I updated my iron-router Controller like that :

ApplicationsListController = RouteController.extend({
   template: 'applicationsList',
   increment: 10,

   (...)

   subscriptions: function(){
     this.applicationsSub = Meteor.subscribe('applications', this.findOptions()) ;
     this.applicationsCount = Meteor.subscribe('applicationsCount');
   },

   (...)

   data: function(){
       var hasMore = this.applications().fetch().length === this.limit();
       var nextPath = this.route.path({applicationsLimit: this.limit() + this.increment});
       Counts.get('applicationsCount');
       return {
         applications: this.applications(),
         ready: this.applicationsSub.ready,
         nextPath: hasMore ? nextPath : null
       };
   }
});

To finally call the count in my template:

<span> There is a Total of {{getPublishedCount 'applicationsCount'}} Applications</span>

Thanks a lot. Hope it will help some people around here.