Above is an example of the Newhall interface with a dataset loaded. The loading was accomplished by selecting “Open Dataset” (Control-O) from the “File” menu, and selecting either an XML or CSV file adhering to either the original BASIC NSM file format, or the newer XML file format. The model runs as soon as the dataset is open. Newhall starts up with no dataset loaded.

The main interface consists of four tabs. “Input” covers the input data to the model. This includes temperature and precipitation data, along with some of the most basic metadata. From here you can specify the waterholding capacity (lower left) along with the parameters for the soil-air relationship with the offset and amplitude (these augment the sine wave, shifting the waveform forward and back, and also diminishing the amplitude). Altering any of these fields will cause the model to rerun instantaneously.

“Calendars” covers the temperature and moisture calendar for the location. The temperature calendar is static and directly related to the monthly temperature values. The moisture calendar is altered by both the dataset and the waterholding capacity. These calendars provide general overviews of the dataset's location given the model inputs.

“Results” shows the conclusions of the model run. This includes evapotranspiration calculations, extended statistics about the location (generally these are summaries of what the calendars have laid out), annual rainfall, and regime determinizations.

“Metadata” includes any extended metadata included in the dataset. For legacy datasets, only the most basic fields are populated, due to the sparse nature of the dataset. XML datasets may have a full compliment of fields in the metadata. Refer to the XML file format documentation later in this document to add and change these values.

The menu bars consist of three menus: “File”, “Options”, and “Help”. “File” contains actions to open datasets, and to exit the application. “Options” includes the action to toggle the unitsystem mode. Newhall starts up in metric mode by default, and can toggle back and forth between metric and english seamlessly. The active unit system is displayed at the bottom-center of the window. The “Help” menu includes the option to view the current version and license information for your current version of the Newhall application.

Two buttons are available at the bottom-right of the window: “Export to XML” and “Export to FLX”. These two buttons export the results of the model to two different file formats. The FLX file format is the legacy output of the BASIC version of the model, denoted by the .FLX file suffix. The XML export is a new format meant to accommodate metadata and extended input and output data in a file format that is both machine-readable and human-readable. The FLX file format does not include the input data used to make it, but the XML file will, as it retains the <INPUT> tag.