Galaxy feature request - server shell access

[ffxsam]

It would be really handy to have access to a server-side meteor shell on Galaxy, much like we do on a local dev environment. I know I can just log into Compose.io or mLab and do queries, but it’s not exactly the same, as I can’t run Meteor specific stuff.

[evolross]

Sorry to dredge up an old post, but I was just thinking about needing this functionality as well. Apparently an interesting work-around is the following (from https://github.com/meteor/meteor/issues/4203`):

something I do as a workaround is set MONGO_URL to the DB of my galaxy deployed app, for a locally running instance (making sure I’m running the same code that’s been deployed to galaxy!) and run meteor shell there. Not the best solution, but decent for issuing one-off method calls or inspecting method/collection results for a deployed app

[johnosullivan]

Example usecase: want to run Accounts.setPassword() on the server, can’t easily make the related changes via mLab.

[msavin]

A bit off topic, but maybe Meteor Candy can offset the need to use shell. It would also make life easier for developers because anyone in the company would be able to perform operations.

Meteor Candy, the 5-Minute Admin Panel for Your Meteor.js App

@johnosullivan if you try the developer edition, you’ll notice that changing account passwords is built into the code samples.

[johnosullivan]

@msavin, without looking at my app, can you tell me what the steps would be
to get up and running w/ Meteor Candy and change a test user’s password on
the server data? I spent some time browsing the site, but I wasn’t clear
whether the app has to be essentially built with Candy in mind.

Walk me through the high-level steps required to migrate an existing Meteor
app onto Candy? You’ve got yourself a customer if the answer is compelling
Also consider making the site talk less about features and more about
admin user experience.

[msavin]

@msavin, without looking at my app, can you tell me what the steps would be

to get up and running w/ Meteor Candy and change a test user’s password on

the server data? I spent some time browsing the site, but I wasn’t clear

whether the app has to be essentially built with Candy in mind.

Walk me through the high-level steps required to migrate an existing Meteor

app onto Candy? You’ve got yourself a customer if the answer is compelling

Also consider making the site talk less about features and more about

admin user experience.

Hey man - consider yourself sold

• The Developer Edition will help you do just that: test out user impersonation, changing passwords, and a few other things - in three simple steps. To try it, just sign up on the website and you will get the breakdown. It takes less than 5 minutes to get Meteor Candy running in your app.
• You do not need to migrate your app to Meteor Candy - it will just sit side-by-side whatever you have. You could do deeper integrations - such as to use Meteor Candy’s Settings data - but its up to you.

And agree - marketing needs a lot of work but first I want to crank out a few more versions. It’s pretty tough because, aside from by user accounts functionality, it does not have many “benefits” in the typical marketing sense. The idea is that the it really easy to produce the benefits one would seek for their app.

[johnosullivan]

Would be happy to talk you through how to present it, because from what I can tell, it has plenty of marketable benefits! The key is knowing who your audience is and speaking to the problems they have. That’s what I meant by focusing on user experience.

Don’t tell me what the library does, tell me how my life is different because I started using it. “View Your App As Any User” rather than “Account Impersonation”, or “Check Data Without Writing Queries” rather than “Internal Data Viewer”. Non-engineers get excited about solutions to their problems, not features. It’s taken me a long time to figure that out! Plenty of your features solve admin problems which take a lot of time; that time is valuable to people running small companies.

That said, you might have bigger problems – just clicked “Buy the Business Edition” and the site locked up! Popsickle flew up the screen and then nothing else happened. Looking forward to trying it out at some point!

[msavin]

Would be happy to talk you through how to present it, because from what I can tell, it has plenty of marketable benefits! The key is knowing who your audience is and speaking to the problems they have. That’s what I meant by focusing on user experience.

Don’t tell me what the library does, tell me how my life is different because I started using it. “View Your App As Any User” rather than “Account Impersonation”, or “Check Data Without Writing Queries” rather than “Internal Data Viewer”. Non-engineers get excited about solutions to their problems, not features. It’s taken me a long time to figure that out! Plenty of your features solve admin problems which take a lot of time; that time is valuable to people running small companies.

I’m liking these ideas. Right now, I am targeting developers - so I’m trying to keep the fluff down - but I am consider an “Enterprise” fork to market to business owners.

That said, you might have bigger problems – just clicked “Buy the Business Edition” and the site locked up! Popsickle flew up the screen and then nothing else happened. Looking forward to trying it out at some point!

Any chance that you were on mobile Android? Mobile traffic is virtually non-existent for my Meteor-related sites, so I’ve put off the compatibility work for a bit.

I found your email online (j....42@gmail.com) and sent you some instructions on how to get the Developer Edition running in your app. It would be great to hear what you think and to continue the conversation there.