Using same form for insert and edit - forms

Question

How can I use the same form for inserting and editing a document in Meteor.
For insert I use empty form without variable:
<template name="frmOrganization">
// no doc variable
<form class="form-horizontal" role="form">
...
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="Name">
And for update I use form with variable:
<template name="frmOrganization">
{{#with organization}} // doc variable
<form class="form-horizontal" role="form">
...
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="Name" value="{{Name}}">

Answer 1

(Using Meteor 0.9.3 + Iron-Router)
I had the same issue and the workaround I used was as follows (seems to be more of a hack but I get to avoid having multiple forms)
<template name="frmOrganization">
// no doc variable
<form class="form-horizontal" role="form">
...
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="Name" value={{name}}>
{{#if name}}
<input type="submit" value="Edit"/>
<input type="submit" value="Delete"/>
{{else}}
<input type="submit" value="Add"/>
{{/if}}
...
In my router.js file
this.route('frmOrganization', {
path: '/organisation/:_id/edit',
data: function() { return Organisation.findOne(this.params._id); }
});
All seems pretty standard, but then for my Add link, I use:
Add
Which will create he following link:
/organisation/null/edit
The null page gives you your Add page and an ID would give you your edit page.
-- Meteor Noob

Answer 2

A simple way would be to use an upsert with the _id of the organization document as the first argument. If nothing is found in the collection when you try to upsert, then it will insert the data into a new document (second argument).
However, there are some packages which can make this task much easier:
autoform, simple-schema and collection2
(I would link to the others but lack the reputation)
Firstly define a schema and apply it to the collection as follows:
Pages = new Meteor.Collection('pages');
PagesSchema = new SimpleSchema({
title: {
type: String,
label: 'Title',
max: 100
},
body: {
type: String,
label: 'Body',
max: 1000
}
});
Pages.attachSchema(PagesSchema);
Then it's possible to simply switch these two templates for an insert or update:
{{> quickForm collection="Pages" id="page-form" type="insert"}}
{{> quickForm collection="Pages" doc=page id="page-form" type="update"}}
(With 'page' being the document itself available in the template)
These handlebars helpers will produce the entire form, and you can even validate with them.

Answer 3

Say that you have a create form at path /my-form. This is fairly straightforward. It creates a new document in your database with an :_id of, say, XYZ123.
Now you want an edit form.
You create a link that goes to /my-form/XYZ123
You've created a path with the document :_id as a parameter.
You then set your route to read the :_id parameter of your path as data. (Look at the Discover Meteor book for an example)
Now add code to your existing form that will take that :_id from the path, do a lookup for the document, and pre-populate the values in the form with the values it finds from the database based off of that :_id.
And change the submit button to do an update instead of insert.
As for delete, that's simple. No extra form needed. On the edit form just create a big red delete button that will delete the document with that :_id.
Write your JS so that if there is a parameter in the path, make the delete button visible and turn the submit button from insert into update.