Using the tree view

The Catalog window provides an integrated and unified tree view of all the data files, databases, and ArcGIS documents available to you. The main menu of the Catalog window has tools for navigating to common locations such as your map's Home folder and the default geodatabase.

Use the Catalog window menu to navigate between various workspace folders, your Home folder, and the default geodatabase.

The primary catalog view underneath the button menu provides a tree view of your GIS contents and is used to navigate and highlight items in the tree. When you highlight items, the contents panel underneath shows you information and details about the selected item.

You right-click selected items to get their shortcut menus.

Nodes in the tree view

In the Catalog window, you will see a series of high-level nodes in the tree view. These are used to establish connections to a number of workspace folders, geodatabases, toolboxes, GIS servers, and other resources:

• Home Folder This is the folder in which your map document is stored. You will always see the Home folder connection at the top of the Catalog tree.
• Default Geodatabase Used to connect to the default geodatabase for the map.
• Folder Connections These are any additional workspace folders to which you have established a connection. You'll see their contents listed under each folder.
• Toolboxes This node is used to organize and access geoprocessing tools.
• Interoperability Connections Used to access a number of special data formats in the optional Data Interoperability extension product. This is used to access Safe Software's FME product for GIS data interoperability.
• Database Server Connections Used to connect as the administrator to geodatabases that are stored and managed in SQL Server Express.

  Learn more about administrator tasks for ArcSDE geodatabases

• Database Connections Used to make user connections to ArcSDE geodatabases in Oracle, SQL Server, SQL Server Express, IBM DB2, Informix, and PostGreSQL.
• GIS Server Connections Used to make connections to ArcGIS servers, ArcIMS servers, and a number of OGC WMS and WFS services.