how to access an object from meteor.call - templates

Question

Just trying to figure things out in Meteor JS. I am stuck trying to get a Meteor.call result object passed back into a template. Here is my code:
HTML Template
<template name="showTotals">
<div class="container">
{{#each recordCnt}}
{{/each}}
</div>
</template>
Client JS
//get a count per item
Template.showTotals.recordCnt = function(){
Meteor.call('getCounts', function(err, result) {
if (result) {
//console.log(result); <-this shows object in javascript console
return result;
}
else {
console.log("blaaaa");
}
});
}
Server JS
Meteor.startup(function () {
Meteor.methods({
getCounts: function() {
var pipeline = [{$group: {_id: null, count: {$sum : 1}}}];
count_results = MyCollection.aggregate(pipeline);
return count_results;
}
});
});
Global JS
MyCollection = new Meteor.Collection('folks');
I have tried adding a console.log(result) for the results of the call, and it displays in the javascript console with the expected results. I cannot get this to populate recordCnt however.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can't do it the way you want because the callback from the Meteor.call runs asynchronously.
You can, however, use the callback to set a Session value and have your helper read Session.get() instead.
Template.showTotals.rcdCount = function() {
return Session.get('rcdCount');
}
Template.showTotals.rendered = function() {
Meteor.call('getCounts', function(err, result) {
if (result) {
Session.set('rcdCount', result);
}
else {
console.log("blaaaa");
}
});
}
See here for a similar answer that includes an example of a "hacky" way of doing it.