Meteor's folder conventions and loading order

Though Meteor doesn't impose restrictions concerning our folder names or structure, there are naming conventions that help Meteor's build process to determine the order in which the files need to be loaded.

The following table describes the folder and their specific loading order:

The following table describes filenames that have created a specific loading order:

So, we see that Meteor gathers all files except the ones inside public, private, and tests.

Additionally, files are always loaded in the alphabetical order, and files in subfolders are loaded before the ones in parent folders.

If we have files outside the client or server folder and want to determine where the code should be executed, we can use the following variables:

if(Meteor.isClient) {
  // Some code executed on the client
}

if(Meteor.isServer) {
  // Some code executed on the server. 
}

We also see that code inside a main.* file is loaded last. To make sure a specific code only loads when all files are loaded and the DOM on the client is ready, we can use the Meteor's startup() function:

Meteor.startup(function(){
  /*
  This code runs on the client when the DOM is ready,
  and on the server when the server process is finished starting.
  */
});

Assets.getText(assetPath, [asyncCallback]);
// or
Assets.getBinary(assetPath, [asyncCallback])

// Synchronously
var myData = Assets.getText('data.txt');

// Or asynchronously
Assets.getText('data.txt', function(error, result){
  // Do somthing with the result.
  // If the error parameter is not NULL, something went wrong
});