To open an existing project click on either on the toolbar folder button or the browse button highlighted. They accomplish identical tasks. The Select Directory: Open Operation form is then displayed. An example is shown in Figure 1. The directory displayed will be the last project directory opened. The last 20 projects are available in the dropdown list located near the bottom of the form. The panel on the right shows the files contained in the selected directory. For Open operations, the EFDC.INP file must exist in the directory.

Figure 1  Select Directory: Open Operation.

 An option to open a previously EFDC_Explorer saved archive file is given. These files all have an extension of "EFDC", for example "CedarRiver.efdc". When you select the Open Archive check box, the right panel only shows the available archive files in the selected directory.

Drag & Drop Method

If EE is already loaded, the user can load a new EFDC project using Windows Explorer. The user can browse to the project folder (or parent folder) and the click on one of the following and then drag the item to the yellow Directory box or the Title box. EE accepts:

• EFDC project folder
• EFDC.EE File
• EFDC.INP file

Double Click Method

During EE installation, the file extension "EE" was associated with the EFDC_Explorer application. Therefore, the user can start a new instance of EFDC_Explorer by double clicking on any file with the EE extension. EFDC_Explorer will start and then load the EFDC project contained in the same folder as the EE file double clicked on.

Legacy EFDC Loading Options

The options provided in the Legacy EFDC Project – Load Options frame can be used when loading old/legacy EFDC projects that were developed without EFDC_Explorer. Generally, these only need to be used the first time EE loads the project. When EE writes a project it saves the project out in the updated formats so these options do not need to be used but once for a legacy model application.

Historically, different versions of EFDC used different CELL.INP formats. EFDC_Explorer automatically handles the file format to correctly load the CELL.INP file. Similarly, the main EFDC.INP file and other input files have changed over the recent development history of EFDC. EFDC_Explorer attempts to correctly read most of the historical input files, while ensuring the latest version works and is the standard.

The "Scale" input box allows the user to apply a conversion factor to the centroid units used in the legacy LXLY file. The EFDC_Explorer default XY unit is in meters. Many applications use kilometers or miles as the units for the cell centroids provided in the LXLY file. For EE to correctly display the model these cell centroid coordinates must be converted to meters. EE can perform this function by entering the conversion factor in the "Scale" box when loading the model for the first time.

The check boxes concerning resetting boundary condition groups apply to existing projects that have been managed by EFDC_Explorer. During the initial loading of a project, or if the Reset check box is selected, EFDC_Explorer tries to logically group boundary condition cells into groups by type and location. EFDC_Explorer then manages the boundary conditions using this group approach. If the user has modified the boundary conditions somehow and wants a different logical grouping, they should select one of these options. The Load WQ Mass Loadings BC's Without Associating Flow BC's to the WQ BC's option is applicable when the user has no flow boundary condition assigned for a specific WQ mass loading boundary. Note that this is not recommended to be done in practice but has been seen in some models.