SUB-FOLDERS ARE NEEDED
I wish to renew this request, previosly made by many others. I would like to be able to nest folders in CalTopo. This would help me organize my data a whole bunch. I find it very limiting that the map display only shows one map at a time, so it would be very helpful to be able to create a nested folder tree within one map that allows me to pick/choose and display an array of map objects without having to change maps all the time. It would also facilitate moving objects around without having to export/import all the time. Without nested folder capability, CalTopo can become very tedious to navigate and manage large data sets such as mine.
Comments
4 comments
hello. on the caltopo blog in April 2025 they announced that there are major changes coming to the interface of the maps and the markers. I have it on good authority that the changes are weeks away. I think I will need to update a lot of training soon!
I'll just add a comment that, yes, this is a nice feature to have, but I have to say CalTopo's user-interface and organization of maps and folders today is by far better than other apps I've used in the past. Some apps you are forced to use individual maps without folders, others use folders on a single "map", some folders are fixed (you can't create your own).
I'm a new user to CalTopo and as soon as I saw how it organizations multiple maps and folders, it became one of the main reasons I immediately decided CalTopo is going to be my go-to app and I subscribed within a week of playing with it. There are a lot more reason why, but the multi-maps and folders features is a big one.
If CalTopo is going to support sub-folders within a map, that's just a killer-feature on top of an already killer-feature :)
I agree. Killer app! For my personal use, I switched to using it after trying it for about 10 minutes. The main draws for me are the automatic cloud synching, many base layers and overlays, and slick mobile app interface. In the past, I would lay out a trip in Google Earth on my laptop, then transfer the data to BackCountry Navigator for use in the field to navigate and capture data, and then transfer that data back to Google Earth for final disposition in the laptop. This system had obvious drawbacks, but I have hundreds of folders, sub-folders, and sub-sub-folders for GIS data in Google Earth, all at my fingertips in the laptop, organized the way I want it on my local hard drive. I can gather data from any folder for display together, just by picking and choosing it. I have sacrificed this to just use Caltopo by itself for its cloud synching and ease of use.
However, if I had my druthers, I would not choose to use the Caltopo "map" construct as the top level data filter. Yes, it simplifies working with a focused data set, but, just as in my GIS work in the mining business, I do not want to be stuck with a pre-filtered "map" data set that requires me to bail out of it, open a second "map", then export then import to add more objects to the first "map" view. In my mining software and in Google Earth on my laptop, all of my thousands of objects are at my fingertips. In my mining software, if I want to repeatedly filter my data for a certain view, I can pick the objects and save that as a "view" or a "plot" data set for quick use any time. This is what a Caltopo "map" is, but without severely filtering the available data into a “map” with ONLY ONE FOLDER LEVEL in it. Caltopo is akin to using AutoCAD for GIS with nice base layers added on, where the “map” is a particular .dwg file with only a limited set of user data “layers”.
For my personal use, I choose my top level of filtering to be activities – xc skiing, ancient tree hikes, volunteer trail crew work, fishing, professional field work, etc – not a “map”. For example, if I want to look at or use my ancient tree hike data, I close all folders, open the top level “ancient tree hikes” folder, and choose the data I want to work with. If I need objects from any other folder, say “fishing”, I just browse to it and open it also. I can open entire sub-bolder trees or just one object – my choice.
I am in process of cramming my historical data into Caltopo. In keeping with my way of doing things, I imported all 22 of my Google Earth “ancient tree hikes” to a single map. I have to expend my ONE CALTOPO FOLDER LEVEL to group the objects by individual hike. If I didn’t do that, they would all be jumbled together and hard to sort out. In order to do this, I had to export one hike folder at a time from Google Earth – 22 exports and imports. I have now captured two new hikes using Caltopo. But I am still stuck with whatever I chose to put in the "map" and have to hopscotch around to add data.
So now, before I do any more of this historical data cramming, I await the hinted major update………. In the mean time, my current activities are easy to work with in Caltopo, as long as I fit myself into the “map” construct…….
This is definitely something to we are working towards. Just to clarify on the comment above though, we have a whole progression of UI changes planned, including some already rolled out improvements (e.g. consolidation of point info features) and eventually nested folders within a revised left bar. While some of those changes may have been a month out at the time of the comment, the nested folder / left bar changes are further out.
Please sign in to leave a comment.