I was planning to save the announcement for the 50,000 download milestone, but it’s ready to go and I couldn’t hold back the excitement. Since the launch, bugs appeared everywhere, some due to Mongol and others due to other packages. They’ve been patched one after the next, and at this point the flux of reports have slowed down.

Today, Mongol 2.0 RC is ready to go with the following improvements:-

Looping for back/forward controls

Patch for when removed documents mess with document position

Filtering out transforms from Mongo queries for raw document editing

Bug fix for when dates would be saved as strings

Switched from Session to private reactive dictionary

Maintenance (UI improvements, code clean-up, bug fixes)

Improved date parsing

To upgrade, try to run ‘meteor update mavin:mongol@1.1.0', and/or remove and add the package.

What’s Next?

Mongol has become complete as a database tool, but that may change in the future. As Meteor gains support for new databases, and our needs evolve, its important that Mongol can continue to adapt. The best way to do that would be to make it easy for the community to make their mark.

Introducing MongolKit, an open SDK for Mongol

MongolKit allows you to quickly slip a row into Mongol while still leveraging the interface and isolation it provides. Instead of building hot key support, a UI and dealing with the quirks that come with that, and then trying to make it fit into your developer experience, you can create a package that will plug right into Mongol.

The SDK is very simple — you simply enter whatever code you want into the “window” and it will display itself inside the tool. My only wish is that Mongol remains focused on being a database tool rather than become a swiss army knife. For the latter, you may want to see wait for the Meteor Toys 2.0 announcement :)

To get started:

- Fork MongolKit on GitHub

- Read the Guidelines

- Contact me to with your questions

Currently, the Mongol SDK will only work locally, but a registry is in the works, and more news to follow on that. In the meanwhile, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to collaborate. It would be nice to feature some awesome packages!

Other Changes

In the effort to keep Mongol focused as a database tool, I’ll be removing the subscriptions tab from Mongol. Instead, it will be available as a separate tool, which will still be available for free. Once both are ready, I will push the update as part of the final version.

Temporary note: Meteor Toys, the premium layer to Mongol, are currently available at a discounted price through the Meteor Pack, which features other goodies from Arunoda, Josh, Sacha and Tom! There’s less than a day to go, so be sure to jump on it now.