Constellation is an extensible, configurable, free, open-source dev console for Meteor.

It provides an API for adding plugins (custom tabs) to the existing UI.

Constellation Demo Site

meteor add constellation:console

After installation, press Control C to toggle it.

Examples of plugins are:

• babrahams:temple (for visualizing template information)
• lai:ddp-inspector (visualize the DDP traffic between client and server)
• yelongren:constellation-reload (reload app while preserving Session variables)
• alon:lag-console (add a lag to methods to simulate real-world response times)
• fermuch:stats.js (JS performance monitoring with stats.js)
• fourquet:anti-gravity (for detecting out-of-date packages)
• constellation:session (for viewing / manipulating data in the Session variable)
• constellation:subscriptions (for viewing current subscriptions)
• constellation:autopublish (for toggling autopublish behaviour)
• constellation:tiny (for really minimizing the UI)
• constellation:connection (for monitoring and toggling connection status)
• constellation:shorten-collection-names (when your collection names get too long)
• constellation:velocity (velocity:html-reporter miniaturized for Constellation)
• constellation:position (allows you to change the Constellation console position)
• constellation:schema (generate SimpleSchema from the Constellation console)
• constellation:plugins (self-service menu of Constellation plugins)
• constellation:dump-restore (dump and restore mongo collections)

If you want to write a plugin, take a look at the source of the packages above.

If you'd like to start with a few plugins installed, copy this into the command line:

meteor add constellation:console constellation:subscriptions constellation:autopublish constellation:session babrahams:temple

OR (for a curated distro of Constellation packages):

meteor add babrahams:constellation

Make a package with the following in the package.js file:

api.use('constellation:[email protected]');
api.imply('constellation:console');

Note: make sure you put debugOnly: true in your package's Package.describe({ ... });

And then put something like this in a js file on the client:

Package["constellation:console"].API.addTab({
  name: 'my-plugin',
  mainContentTemplate: 'Constellation_my-plugin_view',
  headerContentTemplate: 'Constellation_my-plugin_header',
  menuContentTemplate: 'Constellation_my-plugin_menu'
});

name is the only mandatory field, but if you want your package to have any visual presence in Constellation, you'll want to at least set the mainContentTemplate field to the name of a template that contains your plugin UI.

headerContentTemplate is rendered in the header bar of the Constellation UI, right before the name of your plugin (we're assuming you'll probably want this to float: right;).

menuContentTemplate is rendered in the strip at the top of the main content area of the tab that appears when the tab is open.

subMenuContentTemplate is rendered just below the menu strip of the tab, but above the main content. This part is fixed, while the main content scrolls. It gives some extra space to work with if you can't fit everything you need in the menu content strip.

mainContentTemplate is rendered in the space for the main content when a tab is open.

guideContentTemplate is rendered in the Config | Guide tab when the guide for your plugin is selected.

You can set active: false in the object above if you don't want your plugin to be shown automatically (the user can make it visible through the "Config" tab).

noOpen: true means the tab won't open when clicked.

callback: "myCallBack" will fire the "myCallBack" function every time the tab header is clicked. "myCallBack" must be registered as shown in the API section below.

addBaseClass: "my-custom-class" will add my-custom-class to the container <div> of the Constellation widget. constellation:position is an example of a plugin that uses this.

title: "Title when I hover over tab" will give the tab a title. But use this sparingly -- a descriptive tab name is far better. (Note: the tab name bar also gets the class Constellation_tab_constellation_plugin_<name> automatically, so you can target it for styling if you need to.)

You can also set id: "unique-id-for-my-tab" if you like, but unless two plugins share the same name, this isn't going to be necessary.

All methods must be prefixed by Package["constellation:console"].API. when using them in your plugin code, so write this at the top of your files that use the API

var Constellation = Package["constellation:console"].API;

then you can write:

Constellation.isActive() to check whether Constellation's UI is active or closed (i.e. has the user pressed Control C or not)

Constellation.addTab({name: "my-plugin"}) to register a new tab called "my-plugin" in Constellation's UI - see above for the fields the object can have when adding a tab.

The type field/param in the three methods below will be:

• "collection" for collection tabs
• "plugin" for any tab added using Constellation.addTab - i.e. for tabs added by plugin packages and for the default tabs ("Fullscreen", "Account", "Actions", "Config")

Constellation.getCurrentTab() to get the id and type of the currently selected tab in an object of the form {id: <tabId, type: <tabType>} (both values are strings)

Constellation.setCurrentTab("unique-id-of-my-tab", type) to change tabs programatically (use either the id value set in addTab({ ... }) or the name value if no id was set)

Constellation.isCurrentTab("unique-id-of-my-tab", type) to check whether this is the current tab or not (returns true if you've passed the id of the current open tab, along with the correct type)

Constellation.tabVisible("unique-id-of-my-tab", type) to check if this tab is currently enabled by the user via the "Config ..." panel (i.e. does it currently appear as a tab in the user's UI)

Constellation.isFullScreen() to see if Constellation is in fullscreen mode

Constellation.hideCollection('collectionName') to hide collections programatically (collections hidden this way cannot be unhidden through the "Config" tab - they won't even appear there) - accepts an array or a string

Constellation.showCollection('collectionName') to show collections programatically - accepts an array or a string

Constellation.setKeyCode(keyCode) to change the default toggle key from CTRL C to CTRL [whichever key's keycode you set] (Note: this should only be used in app code, as a last-resort config option, and not in plugin package code). In fact, this can be set using the 'Config | Guide' tab now, so I'd say don't use this at all.

Constellation.excludeSessionKeysContaining(prefix) to hide any Session keys containing the given string (prefix) from the constellation:session package

Constellation.excludedSessionKeys to get an array of the strings that will be tested against Session keys to exclude them from display in the constellation:session package

Constellation.toggleConsole() toggles the Constellation console (same effect as CTRL C, but can be called programatically)

Constellation.addBaseClass(className) lets you add a class to the Constellation container element programatically

Constellation.removeBaseClass(className) lets you remove a class from the Constellation container element programatically

Constellation.getCollections() returns a list of the collections visible in the "Config ..." tab (including those hidden by unchecking them), but not the ones hidden using Constellation.hideCollection('collectionName')

If you put a callback in your addTab({ ... }) (e.g. Constellation.addTab({name: "my-plugin", callback: "myCallBack", ...});) you need to register it as follows:

Constellation.registerCallbacks({
  "myCallBack" : function () {
    console.log("Callback fired!");
  }
});