App is old (v1.2), recommend new. Forms, validation, uploads, router

Hi all - I’ve got a production version 1.2.1 app using a form builder that is no longer supported, mesosphere for validation, collectionFS for uploads and iron:router.

I have started rolling autoform/simpleschema/collection2 into the app, but have noticed that these may also be “becoming old”.

What seems to be the best solutions for these lately?

Iron -> Flow?
CollectionFS(gridfs) -> Slingshot?
MyOldForms -> ??

Looking at refactoring/updating.

TIA!

If you’re going to stick with blaze then autoform/simple-schema/collection2, and FlowRouter are the way to go… FlowRouter may be in a bit of flux right now with arunoda announcing he would no longer be as active in the commnunity, but it’s still a great router and I think that some level of maintenance will still be afforded to the package. It may even be taken over by another member of the community. As far as autoform, simple-schema, and collection2, as the author of mesosphere, I personally recommend the switch. A small caveat though is that simple-schema has moved to npm as simpl-schema and collection2 package is deprecated in favor of collection2-core which uses simpl-schema.

As far as uploads go, I’ve switched to using cloudinary. lepozepo:cloudinary, and cosio55:autoform-cloudinary are a couple packages that might be of interest if you choose this route.

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I’m in a similar position with a 1.2 app

Basically Meteor is a mess, lots of libs are dead, and there is still a lot of churn going on. Seems like a nightmare for long term products built in Meteor.

I used to use Meteor a lot, but now, I’ve completely moved away and using other platforms ( which is actually working out a lot lot nicer ). But these legacy meteor apps I have are now a bit of a nightmare and still there doesn’t seem to be a good future proofing other than entirely embrace react … but if you do that, you don’t really need meteor. Also the more time I spend with Mongo, less I like it, so for the most I’ve abandoned Mongo as well.

The one thing Meteor does nice, that no one else seems to do nice is a baked in user / authentication system.

So my recommendation is to port off meteor if you can. Otherwise go react if you can, otherwise, delay the pain and muddle through with whatever is “current”

I really think that the state of meteor we have right now (including simpleschema & autoform) is fantastic and worth keeping alive. :slight_smile:

So if you decide to go for blaze, be prepared to do some bugfixes on your own for existing packages, including creating pull-requests and forks, which in the end is what the open-source idea is all about. We are using free tools here, right? :wink:

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Good info and thanks for the work you did on meso! Going to check out cloudinary.

As meteor went form 1.2.x to 1.4.x and the coupling with npm, we decided to lock in at 1.2 and it’s been fine.

But now that we are looking to not fall too far behind, suddenly there’s 18k packages and forks and it’s alot to sort through.

Everyone’s recommendations are really helpful.