Enhance METviewer GUI to allow database search / narrow / ordering based on metadata facets of the databases

[jvigh]

Currently, the METviewer GUI displays a long list of databases, however it is difficult to tell what they are and what they are for. The 'group' attribute has been helpful in calming some of the chaos, but it's still a wild and woolly list that keeps growing as more projects and people add databases to the main METviewer instance on Mohawk. John Halley Gotway and Jonathan Vigh came up with the idea of expanding the types of metadata (e.g, "metadata facets") that users can provide about their databases. The idea would then be to allow a user to selectively search / narrow / order the database list in the METviewer GUI.

For example, if there was a ‘contributor’ metadata facet, and the GUI had a dropdown of the various search factes, one could select 'Contributor', enter their username in a search box near the database list, and then the GUI would only show the databases in which the contributor facet has been set to indicate them as a contributor. Similarly, one could narrow the list down by project, AOP, etc.

Another example: if there was a 'date last modified' facet, a user could hit a button and reorder the database list from most recent to least recent. If the user has just updated their database, then it should be near the top and save them from having to dig through the various groups. Whether to group the databases could be a toggle.

Also, it would be nice if the GUI displays all of the metadata facets for a given database in a tooltip that shows up when a user hovers over a database name. Tatiana already does have a tool tip for the database 'description', but most users don't set this when they upload their data. For this to work, users would need to supply the various facets needed.

Here's a draft list of potential database facets:

• project -- the project that the database belongs to (e.g., SWPC_CWDP)
• aop -- the annual operating period that the database belongs to (e.g, FY2019)
• contributor -- the user(s) who have contributed to the database (e.g., jvigh)
• date_of_creation -- the initial creation date of the database (e.g., 20190530)
• date_of_last_update -- the date of most recent update to the database (e.g., 20191028)
• evaluation_protocol -- information about what type of evaluation it is (e.g., verification)
• model -- the models being evaluated (e.g., GloTEC, WRF, etc.)
• ob_type -- the observations used in the evaluation (e.g., ADPUPA, etc.)
• Etc.

Decisions may need to be made about what case to allow for the metadata, etc.

I'm adding this issue in case future funding comes in to support this work.