Use catalog views

Catalog views and the Catalog pane share many capabilities for working with project items. Catalog views offer the following unique capabilities:

• View item metadata.
• Preview spatial data and tables.
• Create thumbnail images of datasets that appear in metadata, item pop-ups, and tile displays.
• Manage styles.
• Sort items by their properties, such as name and item type.
• View the modification date and size of file geodatabase items.
• Display items in columns or as tiles.
• Open multiple catalog views to work with items in different locations.

When a catalog view is active, the Contents pane lists the items in the project. As in File Explorer, items in the Contents pane are displayed to the container level. For example, folders, file geodatabases, toolboxes, and maps are displayed because they are item containers. The contents of a selected container, such as feature classes in a geodatabase, are correspondingly displayed in the catalog view.

When a map is selected in the Contents pane, its layers display in the catalog view.

The Contents pane of a catalog view looks similar to the Catalog pane. However, there are differences:

• The Contents pane displays project contents to the container level. The Catalog pane displays contents to the item level.
• In the Contents pane, you select one item at a time. The item's contents are displayed in the catalog view. In the Catalog pane, you can select and work with multiple items.
• The Contents pane displays project items, portal items, and favorites in a single list. The Catalog pane displays them on separate tabs.

Catalog views don't interact directly with the Catalog pane. For example, browsing to locations or selecting items in a catalog view doesn't update locations or selections in the Catalog pane. However, whether you use a view or the pane, the same project items are available. For example, if you add a folder connection in a view, it appears in the pane and vice versa.

Many common tasks can be performed in either a catalog view or the Catalog pane. In a catalog view, commands are accessed from the Catalog and Manage tabs on the ribbon, from item context menus in the Contents pane, and from item context menus in the catalog view. In a catalog view, you can also right-click an empty area of the view to open a context menu for the catalog location.

Open a catalog view

You can open two or more catalog views and use them to compare the contents of databases or folders, compare metadata for two items, copy items from one style to another, and so on. New catalog views open to the top level of the catalog: the Project container . When you browse to a location in a catalog view, save the project, and later reopen it, the view starts by default from its saved location. You can change the default behavior in the catalog browsing options.

When you create a project from the Catalog project template , the project starts with an open catalog view. In other projects, follow these steps to open a catalog view:

1. Click the View tab on the ribbon.
2. In the Windows group, click Catalog View .

   A catalog view opens. Any catalog views that are already open remain open.

   

   The list of item containers, such as Maps, Toolboxes, and so on, varies according to the types of items that have been added to the project.

   Tip:

   Optionally, you can open a catalog view and simultaneously close the Catalog pane. In the Catalog pane, click Menu and click Switch to View .

Display items in columns or as tiles

You can display items in a catalog view in columns or as tiles. In the column display, items and their properties appear in columns that can be sorted. In the tile display, items appear as tiles that show a thumbnail image (if one exists) and other properties.

Portal items are displayed as tiles and in columns. You can switch the display mode on the ribbon or with buttons in the view.

Note:

In the column display, portal items display badges in addition to their other properties. Badges indicate item properties that are set in ArcGIS Online, such as authoritative content , ArcGIS Living Atlas content , subscriber content , and publicly shared content . You can hover over a badge to see its description.

Change the display type

By default, catalog views display information in columns. If you're working with unfamiliar data, or when you manage the contents of a style, you may prefer to see information presented as tiles. Follow these steps to change the display type:

1. On the ribbon, click the View tab.
2. In the Options group, click Display Type.
   • Click Tiles to display items as tiles.
   • Click Columns to display items in columns.

   These buttons are also available at the bottom of a catalog view.

   Tip:

   When items are displayed in columns, you can drag column headers to rearrange the column order.

Work with item details

The details panel of a catalog view allows you to work with item properties in various ways. You can view metadata, preview data, create thumbnail images, manage styles, and update data sources for map layers. The details panel is shown by default but can be hidden. You can drag the details panel by its border to resize it.

A style item is selected in a catalog view. The details panel, outlined in orange, shows the item properties.

Hide or show the details panel

Follow the steps below to hide or show the details panel:

1. On the ribbon, click the View tab.
2. In the Options group, click Details Panel to hide or show the panel.

   This button is also available at the bottom of a catalog view.

Sort items

By default, the contents of a project item container display in alphabetical order after the default item (if there is one). For example, the maps in the Maps container appear in alphabetical order. Similarly, the databases in the Databases container appear in alphabetical order after the default geodatabase. In the Styles container , system styles appear in alphabetical order after the Favorites style .

When you browse into an item, alphabetical order is the typical display pattern, but there are exceptions. For example, items in a folder connection are displayed by type in the following order: folders, databases, toolboxes, CAD datasets, GIS servers, and other files. Within a type, items are in alphabetical order.

You can change the default display order by sorting items in ascending or descending order on an available property. (The available properties depend on the item type.) You can also return to the default sort order.

Note:

The default order of search results—as opposed to the default display order—is based on relevance. See Search project items and Search portal items for additional information.

Portal items

By default, items in portal collections, such as My Content , are displayed by modification date—except items in the Living Atlas collection , which are displayed by relevance. Portal items can be sorted by relevance, date modified, title, or owner, but not by item type. You can also filter a list of portal items using the Filter button .

Style items

By default, style items are displayed in their ID order (the ID is not exposed). Style items can be sorted by name, category, or key. Learn more about style item properties.

Favorite items

By default, favorite items are displayed in the order in which you added or reordered them. They can be sorted by name, type, date modified, or path. Except when the default sort order is used, folders are sorted independently of other favorite items.

Sort a list of items

Follow these steps to sort a list of project items:

1. Make a catalog view active and browse into an item container or content collection.

   You can only sort items when they are displayed in columns. You can't sort them when they are displayed as tiles.

2. In the catalog view, next to the search box, click Sort and click an available property from the drop-down list.

   

   This example shows the sort options available for file geodatabase items.

3. Optionally, click Sort again and do one of the following:
   • Reverse the current sort order.
   • Sort on a different property.
   • Return to the default sort order.

   Tip:

   You can also sort items by clicking a column heading, such as Name or Type, in the catalog view. Click the column heading again to reverse the sort order.

View file geodatabase item information

When you browse into a file geodatabase, you see its items and their properties. For feature classes and tables, properties include the item name, type, modification date, file size, and path. For raster datasets and other items, properties include the item name, type, and path.

You can turn off the display of the Date Modified and Size properties in the Catalog Browsing options. This may improve browse performance for large file geodatabases.

Use the location bar

The location bar at the top of a catalog view shows the current location in the catalog.

You can use the location bar to browse items in the following ways:

• Click a place in the current path to browse to that location. For example, click C:\Cloudburst to display the contents of that folder.
• Click the location bar drop-down arrow to see a list of previously visited locations. Click a list item to browse to that location.
• Click the map button in the location bar to format the location as a path that can be copied to the clipboard. You can also paste or type a path in the bar to browse to that location. A folder connection is added to the project if the location is not accessible from a folder connection.
• Click Up to go up a level in the current location's path.
• Click Back and Forward to revisit locations.