[NHP-concept]: gage name interaction w/ multiple datasets

[trietmnj]

This thread is to continue our conversation we had earlier

@rgoss @timbbaldwin @brett-hultgren-USACE @helenwalz

[brett-hultgren-USACE]

Judging from your description today of how the data is stored, I believe the best way would be to link everything to the x-y coordinate pair instead of the reach/river mile, since every data point will have x-y coordinates, but not every data point will have a 'Name' field or 'Reach' and 'River Station' fields. You could still use the search radius method you're using now to link points from different studies together. So for example, if the stage frequency study was uploaded first, there would be a bunch of points in the database with x-y coordinates. Then for the flow frequency study or any dataset that gets uploaded in the future, the points could be scanned for any that are overlapping/within a search radius from an existing point. If they overlap, the new point's x-y coordinates get changed to exactly match the x-y coordinates of the existing point, and those x-y coordinates are what links data from different studies together.

If each data entry had an alias field, you could display that to the user so people don't just get a list of x-y coordinates. The alias could be the 'Name' field or the 'Reach' and 'River Station' fields, whichever one exists. The search panel on the left of the viewer could display a list of all unique aliases in the database. When the user selects one in the list, the plot panel would display all the data at the x-y coordinate that is linked to that alias. In this way, there could be multiple entries you could select in the left panel that would take you to the same place.