RiverWare 6.1: Two SCT Configuration Enhancements -- May 2011
Phil Weinstein, CADSWES, edit 5-03-2011 -- PDF Version (4 pages).

(0) Overview

These pages contain some rough notes exploring two enhancements to the SCT:

  1. Default Aggregation Summary Function (e.g. Last, Average, Sum, Median, 1st, ...), and the ability to apply that default to the Slots in the SCT. Currently, when slots are added to an SCT, their inital Aggregation Summary Function is "Last".
  2. Slot Display Units Override. Numeric slot values are now displayed using the display configuration for each particular Slot. This new feature would allow the user to specify different units (with scale and "precision") for numeric display, on a per-unit-type basis.

Reference Screenshots (current SCT):

(0.1) Some key mockup pieces. (Read more below).

A panel like this would be used in one of the following ways.

  1. Added to the SCT Configuration's "Summary" tab.
  2. Added to the existing Aggregation Config dialog which is shown from the SCT's Aggregation menu.
  3. Shown in a new dialog, also available from the SCT's Aggregation menu.

(The different classes of slots could be something else, e.g. maybe not addressing Power and Energy).

This is for the proposal to support overriding the configured slot units for only the four major unit types. But we could manage a variable set of unit types to support. (That adds a lot of complexity).

 

   

(1.1) Default Aggregation Summary Function
   -- Approach One: SCT Configuration "Summary" Tab.

Note: I recommend one of the other approachs; see below. 

I initially considered extending the SCT Configuration's "Summary" tab to define Default Summary Functions (for three different classes of Slots, based on unit type).

These settings in an SCT's config would be applied when slots are added to the SCT, or when clicking the "Apply to SCT Now" button. Saving the SCT config as the Default SCT would then cause these defaults to be applied to subsequently created SCTs.

See the mockup-up section in the image to the right (missing the dialog border). (Some of the text would need to be adjusted). Here is a comparison with an exact screenshot of the current SCT Config Summary Tab.


(1.2) Default Aggregation Summary Function
   -- Approach Two: Add to the Aggregation Config dialog.

   

Currently, the SCT's Aggregation >> "Aggregation Config..." dialog brings up the "SCT Timestep Aggregation" dialog.

We could add a new "Default Summary Functions" section to that dialog.

Note that the current timestep aggregation data (far right image) is stored in the SCT configuration. If we take this approach, the new Default Summary Function settings could, but technically wouldn't have to be, stored there too (similar to Approach One). Alternatively, the Default Summary Function settings could instead be stored in user settings. If we want to use user settings for this, the third approach may be the most consistent, see below.

(1.3) Default Aggregation Summary Function
   -- Approach Three: New Aggregation Default Summary Functions dialog.

Alternatively, the new Default Summary Functions controls could be deployed in its own dialog. This makes the most sense if we store this configuration in user settings. It would be accessible from the SCT's Aggregation menu (and we would change the existing "Aggregation Config..." menu item to be specific to "Timestep Aggregation Config").

Aggregation
  >> Timestep Aggregation Config ...
  >> Default Summary Functions ...

   

(2) Slot Display Units Override

Numeric slot values are now displayed using the display configuration for each particular Slot.

I propose that we add an option to override a Slot's display scale, units and precision based on the Slot's unit type -- but only for the four major unit types: Flow, Volume, Area, and Distance.

We could choose to support a variable, user-editable set of unit types. That would be quite a bit more complicated in both user interface and implemenation issues. The design might be similar to that used for the Supply Name Parts in the Supply Name Format dialog. Or, we could choose to support overriding a few other important unit types, e.g. Energy and Power.

A new "Slot Units" submenu would be added to the SCT's View menu with two radio buttons to switch between the two sources of units, plus an additional operation to show the "Override Slot Display Configuration" dialog -- see the images to the right.

If the "Override Slot Display Configuration" data was stored either in user settings or in the model file (or both), these overrides could be applied in exactly the same way to other slot data displays in RiverWare.

 

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