Meteor: Template always returns true

Question

in my web-app, some "news-and-events-entries" have cover-images, some don't (images are stored with CollectionFS). Here's an example with an image (key is coverImageId):

JSON:

{
    "_id" : "gDPwfDJFxh3y7NBBK",
    "title" : "EGOS 2015 reminder: Open Organizations for an Open Society?",
    "description" : "\n\t\t            \t\t\n\t\t            \t\tOpen Organizations for an Open Society? Practicing Openness in Innovation, Strategy and Beyond; Convenors: Leonhard Dobusch, Freie Universität Berlin, Georg von Krogh, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Richard Whittington, Oxford University, Link to website: : http://bit.ly/EGOS15Open\n\t\t            \t\n\t\t            \t",
    "type" : "news",
    "createdAt" : ISODate("2016-02-28T20:30:09.316Z"),
    "coverImageId" : "teEfXMANGbSn4vWkD"
}

Template:

<div class="row text-left">
   {{#each newsEventsData}}
    <div class="col-sm-4">
       <div class="caption">
        {{#if imageExists}}     
          <h4>TRUE {{title}}<img alt="news thumbnail" class="news-thumbnail" src="{{ coverImage.url }}" /></h4>
        {{else}}
          <h4>FALSE {{title}}</h4>
        {{/if}}                                         
        <p class="text-muted">{{{description}}} <a href="{{pathFor route = 'newsAndEventsPage'}}" class="textlink">read more </a></p>
    </div>
   </div>
  {{/each}}
</div> <!-- ROW --> 

If there's an image, the image is shown. So, this works. However, the else part never gets rendered. I assume my helper renders true because it's enough if one document contains a coverImageId.

Helper:

Template.allNewsEvents.helpers({
  newsEventsData: function () {
    if(Session.equals("newsEventsSeeMore","no")) {
       return NewsEvents.find({type: { $in: Session.get('newsEventsViewMain')}}, {sort: {createdAt: -1}, limit: 3});
    }
    else {
      return NewsEvents.find({type: { $in: Session.get('newsEventsViewMain')}}, {sort: {createdAt: -1}});
    }   
  },
  imageExists: function () {
    return NewsEvents.find({_id:this._id},{coverImageId: { $exists: true } });
  }
}); 

Any help really appreciated.

Answer 1

find returns a cursor, which is an object and will always evaluate to true. You want:

  imageExists: function () {
    var event = NewsEvents.findOne( {_id:this._id} );
    if( event && event.coverImageId ) {
      return true;
    } else {
      return false;
    }
  }