Quick filter in Contents Panel in Catalog Window

[PiotrIwaniuk]

When one has many features to show in this tiny window, i.e. from big professional database, sometimes it's problematic and takes time to find the one feature class you need. Especially if you see many schemas you need to search through to all of them. If there was a dynamic kind of filter (as a header I guess?) it would be easy to i.e. type the user name to show all tables he particularly owns.

I'am aware that there's a search window, but, in my opinion there wouldn't be a problem if those two functionalities were functioning side by side.

[ZachBodenner]

Yeah, you're right @TimOrmsby , that does work, but also seems excessive because it searches the entire project. I wish I could just filter whatever enterprise geodatabase connection I have selected/open, as @Luke_Pinner points out.

[AlfredBaldenweck]

I'm not sure why Pro can't just look at the list of items it's called and displayed and then. you know. filter that list down?

Like, you've already gone through the trouble of retrieving a full accounting of the contents of this geodatabase, isn't the next logical step to just search the list right there?

This gif is my searching a file geodatabase (granted, on a network path so not indexed, etc.) in the Add Data* for the FIRST result and it not finding anything!

Same thing in Catalog View:

HOW can you not find anything? It's right there!? You brought it to me!

You shouldn't have to index to search something that is directly in front of you on your desk already.

I would take a "right-click on the folder or database-> Search" button in Catalog Pane as a solution.

(Not sure if this should be a separate Idea or part of the same thing, but I'd also appreciate being able to filter contents by type with a right-click button-- I don't need to see relationship classes all the time, you know?**  I ended up making this Filter idea into a separate Idea here: Catalog: Filter by Item Type - Esri Community)

I can understand not wanting to change the way indexing works, or changing the current project search function to see which workspaces are open, then figuring out how far down to go, etc. 

But the fact of the matter is it shouldn't be this hard to find the files we're looking for. 

Because we are apparently (I can't find the Idea this morning but I know I've seen one) never going to get anything like a folder structure in a database***, it's actually very difficult to organize our things, and we end up seeing all 50+ items at once. Like I say in the other Idea linked above, I'm seeing 141 Feature Classes, 31 Tables, 32 Relationship Classes, and a Topology all at once.

Being able to search is kind of imperative here.

*I know that this Idea is specifically for the Catalog Pane, so I apologize if I'm muddying the waters here by bringing in different windows, but I do feel like it's the same issue.

** Again, if Catalog is smart enough to identify the type of each Item when we open that workspace, it should be smart enough to filter them without having to Index.

***Feature Datasets are not folders, and since we can't put tables into them, we end up with a billion free-floating tables and relationship classes

(Unrelated but making these footnotes is hard so please vote on this Idea to add in actual footnote support here: Add ability to add footnotes to our posts - Esri Community)

[TimOrmsby]

@ZachBodenner hi, I know the solution you all have in mind is a filter that doesn't depend on a  prebuilt index, but just wanted to mention in response to Zach's comment about searching the project, that IF you index the egdb, or whatever workspace, it is possible to search it exclusively by browsing to it in a catalog view.