Catalog File Grouping / Sort Order

[JakeKrall]

ArcCatalog maintains files by group type more or less.  Folders at the top, File geodb's next and everything else last.  See screenshots.  I've looked for setting for controlling sort order, but doesn't seem to be options for doing so.  Can this be added to Options for listing files in Catalog?  Same View Options as Windows would be helpful. 

ArcCatalog Tree:

Pro Catalog is 100% A-Z order, with no options to change:

[RandyCasey]

Please do this esri! Also, FILTERS! If I have 200 items in a database and I just want to see only the tables or a specific type of feature class, I should be able to filter my view to just those items instead of searching down a long list everything.

[NaicongLi]

Hello @JakeKrall,

Thank you for your feedback. 

We do not have any plans to add more functionalities to ArcCatalog.  However in ArcGIS Pro, you already have the capability to sort items as you described above, not in the Catalog pane, but in catalog views – sort by Name, Type, and when applicable, by Date Modified, Size, and Path, as well as by Default sort order, which is the sort order in the Catalog pane, similar to what you would see in ArcCatalog.  Below is a screen capture showing the sort options in a catalog view, with Date Modified (most recent on top) as the current sort order: 

You can do such sorting either by by using the Sort drop down (as above), or by directly clicking on the column header (Name, Type, etc.).

And Hello @RandyCasey, – while the filter functionality is not yet in place for the Catalog view, you could, for now, take advantage of sorting by Type - when you browse into your database, click the Type column header to sort the items by type, and you can then scroll to all the table items that are grouped together, for example.

[NaicongLi]

We are closing this idea since the requested sorting functionality is already in ArcGIS Pro, and the filter idea in the comment is captured in this separate Pro Idea: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/quick-filter-in-contents-panel-in-catalog-window/idi-....

[wayfaringrob]

@NaicongLi  where is the option to do this in Pro? Folders > .gdb > everything else is how it works in ArcCatalog; when sorting by type in Pro, it still sorts everything that's not a folder -- including geodatabases -- alphabetically after folders, which puts any file type starting with A through E (and some Fs) prior to File Geodatabases.

Having folders, then geodatabases, then everything else is really important when you're trying to find data that you know is stored hierarchically. Interrupting that with Excel sheets and other things that happen to start with A, B, C, D, or E breaks that established, useful rhythm of knowing that your containers will be at the top. I don't know that this request should be marked closed, I would definitely upvote it as I feel it has not been implemented properly.

[NaicongLi]

Hi @rburke-bsrc, 

It seems that you are looking for the "default" sort order, which is the sort order for folder content in ArcCatalog, as well as the sort order in the Catalog pane in ArcGIS Pro.  To sort things this way in the Catalog view, you can use the Sort drop down and select Default Sort:

Note that this Default sort order is what you would see for your project content when you open your project, before you manually change the sort order.

I hope this answers your question.

[wayfaringrob]

@NaicongLi  just tried that, still getting Excel above file geodatabases.

[NaicongLi]

@wayfaringrob,

In Pro, Excel worksheets are supported as a type of database (whereas in ArcCatalog they are supported as a type of file), therefore they appear in the same group with database items in the Default sort order.  Within this group, Excel worksheets will just be ordered alphabetically together with database items:

If you find your Excel worksheets always ordered before the database items regardless of their name, then it is a bug that we need to fix.  Could you please confirm that this is not the case? 

If on the other hand you do not like to see Excel worksheets ordered alphabetically together with databases, then, could you please enter a separate Pro Idea for it?  This current idea is about sorting capabilities in general.

Thank you for your feedback!

[wayfaringrob]

@NaicongLi  I see, logically that does make some sense since Pro does have you select a specific sheet out of your Excel file. Just not the way I'm used to thinking of them I guess. I am seeing that they are ordered alphabetically together -- databases and Excel workbooks, so no bug there. Knowing how it works is helpful, thanks!

[NaicongLi]

@wayfaringrob - thanks for confirming that there is no bug!