What are the benefits of Smart Data Component Structure?
The most significant benefit of Smart Data Component Structure is its flexibility. The system is designed in a plug-n-play style. If the user does not like the display format, it would be very easy to switch to another view component. For example, the user may want to use a list instead of a tree to make a choice, all the system needs to do is to create a new list view component and “plug in”. Likewise, if the model data structure is changed, the effect to the view components are mimimal. You may only need to make some minor changes in the middleware. This kind of flexibility is especially important in MOSES where four erosion models share the same interface. For instance, the operation parameters are different in the four models. Thus the user will see different parameters while switching from WEPP to WEPS. This is very simple to do with the above structure. What the system will do is to create a new tree structure (the lower middleware in figure 2), and hook it to the tree view compo
