Improve data browsing performance for file based data sources

[KeithAdlam]

Currently browsing for data is very slow, particularly if there are many files in folders. I suspect that this is due to the fact that each file is being opened to discover it's type (point,line,polygon etc). This alows the file to be validated as a valid ESRI file type and allows icons to be assigned depending on the type of file.

However in the interest of faster data browsing it would be very useful to have a fast browsing option that displayed data sources in a simple way and did not open each file in the folder during browsing.

Keith AM Adlam
British Geological Survey

[JurajKrumpolec]

I agree. It takes a century to list few geodatabases in ArcCatalog in the Details view.

[EricPaitz]

I agree that the performance of browsing data can be very slow. A related issue is that the user interface will totally lock-up while its trying to fetch and paint the results to the screen. When browsing large amounts of files or folders using Windows Explorer it does not lock-up because its being done in a thread so the UI thread is not locked-up. ArcGIS Desktop should use an in-process thread so the main UI thread does not lock-up, and then the use can cancel the operation or navigate to another folder locaiton without waiting.