feat(populate): populated items update when changed in database

[DeividasK]

Original data:

goals: {
  goalId1: {
    uid: 'userId',
    partner: 'userId2'
  }
}
users: {
  userId: {
    displayName: 'John Smith'
  },
  userId2: {
    displayName: 'Jim Rogers'
  }
}

Data after population:

goals: {
  goalId1: {
    uid: {
      displayName: 'John Smith'
    },
    partner: {
      displayName: 'Jim Rogers'
    }
  }
}

I have noticed that after updating the original users.userId.displayName to Batman, the populated item did not update, i.e. goals.goalId1.uid.displayName remained John Smith. I think this is a good default behaviour, but it took me sometime to figure this one out. Maybe this should be mentioned somewhere in the docs?

[prescottprue]

Correct @DeividasK, populates are only once calls. The original query is most likely on (unless you provided type: 'once'), so updates in that will trigger updates. That means that populate data (i.e. user object) doesn't update when it updates.

I will add something to the docs to outline this, but it brings up the point that it might be nice to turn on this capability. It wouldn't be the default, as you mentioned, since that could potentially cause a huge amount of listeners to be set.

[DeividasK]

@prescottprue being able to turn this sounds like a great possible enhancement :)

[prescottprue]

This has been added to the roadmap for v1.4.0.

[marekolszewski]

While we wait for v1.4.0, is there a way to explicitly reload a populated item (or any other data loaded without binding)?

[prescottprue]

@marekolszewski Not currently.

Also, the roadmap is actually going to be updated to reflect that this will not be supported until an even later version (as v1.4.0 ended up being quite large with react-native bugs/features). Will continue to update this issue thread with relevant info.

[prescottprue]

Getting more and more users asking for this feature. Will hopefully be the big feature of v1.5.0.

[projoneftw]

Is this gonna be part of 2.0 or..? :)

[prescottprue]

@projoneftw That is most likely going to be the plan. I will be reviewing and updating the roadmap this weekend to reflect recent v2 changes (as well as in which versions features such as this one will land).