ArcCatalog: Let me create subfolders for my connections!

[DavidFlack]

I manage a couple dozen ArcSDE databases, which means for each of these I have connections as a database owner, data owner, and publisher.  My list can easy include 100 different connections.  I also need to maintain a few dozen links to ArcGIS Servers, both ones I manage and ones I consume.

It would be awesome if I could set up subfolders in ArcCatalog under the Database Connections and GIS Servers to make it easier to locate these connections.  They map to a folder in my profile so it shouldn't be hard to manage subfolders as well!

[RonnieRichards]

You could manage these connections on a network location but oh yeah you cannot publish services from centrally managed connections. Silly!
https://c.na9.visual.force.com/apex/ideaView?id=087E00000004VZeIAM

Yeah to the authors idea of folders and copy/paste of connections!
https://c.na9.visual.force.com/apex/ideaView?id=087E00000004VZjIAM

[IngmarAlbinson]

Workaround:

• Create a folder in My Document with name Database Connections.
• In ArcCatalog create a folder connection to that folder
• With explorer copy all connection files from C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.1\ArcCatalog to that folder
• Use explorer or ArcCatalog to create new folders and reorganize your connection files

[AndrewQuee]

This has been bugging me for a very long time.  Sure, if you have one database, all is good, but once you have several, and especially when you have dev, test and prodcution versiosn, all with the same schemas, it becomes a nightmare, and it becomes incredibly easy to click on  user@production.sde, instead of user@test.sde, and then commit changes to the wrong database.
 

As a stark contrast example, here are the same connections in Oracle SQL Developer and ArcCatalog.  Which is easier and more intuitive to use?

[IngmarAlbinson]

New workaround, see picture.
Create a Folder Connection to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.3\ArcCatalog
Rename that folder connection to Database_Connections
Now you can manage your database connections including subfolders