New in Lion is the ability to arrange items in a Finder window; that is to say, you can group your files into clumps, such as by kind, by size, by associated application and more.  The files are then separated by a heading that identifies each group.

This new feature works in any view:  icon, list, column and Cover Flow.  There are any practical uses for this new feature.  For instance, if you want to see what application opens (is associated with) any of your files, you can arrange your folder by Application, as shown in the screenshot above.

When you working with the Applications folder, there is a special category that appears in the Arrange By menu:  Applications Category. What this does, is sorts your applications by what they do:  Productivity, Games, Entertainment, Video, Utilities, Reference, etc.  This can be helpful if you have a large collection of applications to sift through.

There are several ways that you can access the Arrange By feature.  You can choose View from the Finder menu, point to Arrange By and then choose the category you want.  You can also click the Arrange icon on the Finder toolbar and choose the desired category from the list.  You can also right-click on any blank area when in Icon view and choose Arrange By from the contextual menu.

To remove the current arrangement of a folder, choose View > Arrange By from the Finder menu and then click None.

To Arrange the Contents of a Folder

1. Select View > Arrange By from the menu, and then click on the desired arrangement
   Or
   Click the Arrangement icon on the Finder toolbar and then click the desired arrangement.
2. To remove the arrangement of a folder, choose View > Arrange By from the Finder menu and then click None.

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