Latest Contributions by AletaVienneau

Hello @JoeFlannery,  ArcGIS Pro 3.7 offers several improvements for project favorites, including the ability for administrators to provide "System Favorites" in addition to the user's collection of "My Favorites".  It's true. ArcGIS Pro project favorites do not work the same as ArcCatalog. ArcCatalog had a combination of folders referenced by the ArcCatalog.gx file and connection files read from a folder. In ArcGIS Pro, all project favorite items are entries in a favorites file. This behavior is not going to change. The framework used in ArcGIS Pro provides some advantages that are starting to be realized with the improvements available in ArcGIS Pro 3.7. You can create and use a custom favorites file and a custom favorites cache folder for My Favorites. The favorites file location is independent of the favorites cache folder location. This provides a flexible framework that meets the requirements for different workflows. Once you collect all your favorite items in one place, select them all and drag and drop them onto My Favorites in the Catalog pane or Catalog view. When a message box asks if you want to copy the items to the favorites cache folder you can say No because they are already stored in the desired location. Alternatively, you can drop these items on My Favorites first and have ArcGIS Pro copy the items to the custom favorites cache folder.  With these improvements, you can use the same custom My Favorites list from all your computers even when roaming profiles are not supported on your network. When you update a shared favorites file, you can immediately see the changes on another machine by pressing F5 to refresh the My Favorites list. You can also have multiple favorites files and switch the set of My Favorites when you start doing work for a different customer, for example.  ArcGIS Pro 3.7 also allows GIS administrators to configure a set of items as System Favorites, which is not editable by GIS users. GIS users are still able to define their own collection of "My Favorites" project items.  Administrators can provide GIS users with System Favorites automatically by defining the system favorite file's location in the Pro.settingsConfig file. The application settings defined in the Pro.settingsConfig file can be applied automatically when you run a silent install of ArcGIS Pro. This allows GIS administrators to automatically make System Favorites and other application settings immediately available when someone starts ArcGIS Pro.  Once deployed, administrators can change which items are referenced by the system favorites file at any time and users will see the updates when System Favorites is refreshed. The referenced items can live in any shared location on the network, or they can push updated information to a common location on the local machine using standard IT distribution mechanisms. Either way, the GIS administrator does not have to login to every team member's machine and drop new database connection files into their user profile to share the latest database information. For more information see the Use project favorites help topic and the Create system favorites help topic. You can learn about deploying ArcGIS Pro application settings in the Manage application settings help topic. There are still bugs to fix and more enhancements to complete, but we believe these changes address the main ideas expressed here. For this reason, we are marking the idea as implemented. ... View more

Hello @MayaDominice,  Because ArcGIS Desktop retired on March 1, 2026 we were considering this idea in the context of ArcGIS Pro.  In ArcGIS Pro you can run an ArcPy script that adds folder connections, database connections, styles, and toolboxes to a project using the updateFolderConnections, updateDatabases, updateStyles, and updateToolboxes methods. These methods are discussed in detail in the help topic for the ArcGISProject class. Code samples are available showing how to use them. In particular, "ArcGISProject example 4" shows how to set the folder connections in a project and "ArcGISProject example 5" shows how to set the databases in a project. Also, in ArcGIS Pro the Catalog pane provides access to all supported locations on the local machine on the Computer tab, and the Catalog view and all browse dialog boxes provide access to the same places under the Computer heading. You can learn more about the available options from the Catalog pane, catalog views, and browse dialog boxes help topic. ArcGIS Pro 3.7 introduces the capability for a GIS administrator to configure a set of folder connections, databases, servers, etc. as System Favorites. These items can be provided to GIS users automatically by creating a system favorites file and referencing it in the Pro.settingsConfig file. Application settings defined in the Pro.settingsConfig file can be applied automatically by referencing the file when you run a silent install of ArcGIS Pro. This allows GIS administrators to automatically make System Favorites and other application settings immediately available the first time someone starts ArcGIS Pro.  Providing GIS users with System Favorites does not prevent them from defining their own collection of "My Favorites" project items. For GIS users, with ArcGIS Pro 3.7 you can now export your collection of favorite items to a custom favorites file. When you get a new computer, ArcGIS Pro can be configured to use the exported file (or a copy of it) to define "My Favorites" on the new machine. Items in "My Favorites" can be designated to be added automatically to any new projects that you create; this capability will be added for System Favorites in a future release. For more information see the Use project favorites help topic and Create system favorites help topic. You can learn about deploying ArcGIS Pro application settings in the Manage application settings help topic. ... View more

This capability is available in ArcGIS Pro 3.7. A GIS administrator can now configure a set of folder connections, databases, servers, etc. as System Favorites. These items can be provided to GIS users automatically by creating a system favorites file and referencing it in the Pro.settingsConfig file.  Application settings defined in the Pro.settingsConfig file can be applied automatically by referencing the file when you run a silent install of ArcGIS Pro. This allows GIS administrators to automatically make System Favorites and other application settings immediately available the first time someone starts ArcGIS Pro.  Providing GIS users with System Favorites does not prevent them from defining their own collection of "My Favorites" project items.  For more information see the Create system favorites help topic. You can learn about deploying ArcGIS Pro application settings in the Manage application settings help topic. ... View more

Hello @AlfredBaldenweck,  With ArcGIS Pro 3.7 you can export your My Favorites collection to one or more separate files. You can edit their contents so each file has a different set of items. You can then direct ArcGIS Pro to show the items stored in a specific favorites file in My Favorites. In your situation, you can edit the contents of each favorites file to represent the folder connections needed for projects associated with a specific office. The favorites file for a specific office can be stored in the folder where that office's projects and data are stored, for example. If you configure Pro to use the favorites file for Office 1, the next project you create will have all the folder connections needed for Office 1 that were designated to be added to all new projects. Similarly, if you change Pro to use the favorites file for Office 2, the next project you create will include all the folders needed for an Office 2 project, and so on.  For more information see the "Export favorites" section and the "Customize the location of the favorites file" section in the Use project favorites help topic. ... View more

Hello @LyonMNGIS,  When working with portal items in the Catalog pane, Copy Path is not yet available. And similarly, the link to the portal item's URL is not yet clickable in the Catalog view. We do plan to make these capabilities available in a future release of ArcGIS Pro. However, I wanted to note that a deliberate change was made with ArcGIS Pro 3.7 where portal items that are not directly supported in ArcGIS Pro will no longer appear when you access items in the active portal in the Catalog windows. For example, this means you won't be able to see or open Story Maps from ArcGIS Pro when you are accessing content from the Living Atlas.  ... View more

Hello @TonyDuerkop,  With ArcGIS Pro 3.7 you can export your My Favorites collection to a separate file. This way you can share your list of favorite items with other people. For more information see the "Export favorites" section in the Use project favorites help topic.  You can also develop different sets of favorite items that are appropriate when you work for different customers or do work on different topics. You can point your My Favorites collection to a different favorites file and show a different set of favorite items. For more information see the "Customize the location of the favorites file" section in the Use project favorites help topic.   The capability to import favorite items will be added in a future release of ArcGIS Pro. ... View more

ArcGIS Desktop retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. For reference, the requested capability is already available in ArcGIS Pro in the Catalog pane and the Catalog view. For more information, see the Work with OLE DB Connections help topic.  Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

Filtering features in a feature class or filtering rows in a table using a definition query is only possible when data is added to a map. The definition query is a property of the map layer, and is not available as a property of the feature class or table. For example, when you open the Properties dialog box for a feature class or a table, there is no option available to define a definition query. This is true for both ArcCatalog and ArcGIS Pro. When you preview data in either ArcCatalog or in a Catalog view in ArcGIS Pro, you can preview the data directly as a precursor to using the data for analysis or visualizing the data in a map to know you will be working with the correct dataset. The place to define properties of a map or table layer is in the map itself, in both ArcMap and in ArcGIS Pro. In ArcGIS Pro, after adding data to a map you can add a definition query as described in this help topic: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/definition-query.htm. If your data is stored in a database, you may also be interested in defining a query layer: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/creating-a-query-layer.htm. ... View more

ArcGIS Desktop retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. For reference, the requested capability is already available in ArcGIS Pro in the Catalog pane, the Catalog view, and browse dialog boxes such as Add Data. For more information, see the Project favorites help topic. Favorites are available in every project you open. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

ArcGIS Desktop retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate the contributions you make to help us continuously improve the software to help you do your work. We look forward to hearing your ideas for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

Closing this issue as "Already Offered" in the ArcMap Catalog window, as reported by DuncanHornby. ... View more

ArcGIS Desktop retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. For reference, the requested capability is already available in ArcGIS Pro in the Catalog pane, the Catalog view, and browse dialog boxes such as Add Data. When you press a key on the keyboard, an item beginning with that letter is selected in the contents list. When you press that key again the next item in the list beginning with that letter is selected; this can involve jumping to another section of the list that contains a different category of items. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

Hi @JurajKrumpolec,  ArcGIS Desktop retired on March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application, if you have not done so already. Most of the improvements that were suggested for ArcCatalog are already addressed in ArcGIS Pro. This includes the capability of updating data sources using find and replace: Update data sources. You can also copy and paste layer properties from one layer or table to another: Copy and paste properties between layers and tables. Most of the outstanding suggestions are captured in other existing ideas submitted for ArcGIS Pro, particularly: Provide a report of all data connections associated with an ArcGIS Pro project Browse other project’s map frames and layouts from the Catalog pane However, since this idea includes many suggestions relating to different aspects of ArcGIS Pro it won't be merged with the other ideas. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts about how we can continue to improve the software. We truly appreciate your contributions and help you do your work. We look forward to about any ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

Hi @KristenWobbe, ArcGIS Desktop retired on March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. In ArcGIS Pro it is possible to remove geoprocessing history from an item’s metadata and make tweaks to its metadata with Python scripts. Learn more about using the xml property and the deleteContent and save methods in the documentation for the ArcPy Metadata class: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/arcpy/metadata/metadata-class.htm. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more

Hi @JenniferBorlick  This idea was written with regards to the transition from ArcGIS Desktop version 9.x to version 10.x. ArcGIS Desktop retired on March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. The overall workflow for creating FGDC CSDGM-compliant metadata using ArcGIS Pro is documented in the help topic Create FGDC CSDGM metadata: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/metadata/create-fgdc-csdgm-metadata.htm. If there is ever a need, you can save a copy of an item’s metadata to an external file as a backup of your work, or as a temporary measure while issues with upgrading or migrating a geodatabase are resolved This workflow is documented in the help topic Save a copy of an item's ArcGIS metadata: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/metadata/save-a-copy-of-an-item-s-metadata.htm. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. Aleta ... View more