Getting started

What this is, what you need, and how to set it up. About five minutes, and you don't need to be good with computers.

What you need

• A Google account. Any Gmail address is one. They are free, and if you already use Gmail you already have one.
• Nothing else. No payment, no password to invent, no software to install.

What you are actually getting

Your catalog is a spreadsheet in your own Google Drive — the same place Google keeps your other documents. Your photographs go in a folder next to it.

This website is a window onto that spreadsheet. It makes the records pleasant to look at, search and add to. But the records themselves are yours and sit in your Drive, which has two consequences worth understanding up front:

• You can open the spreadsheet directly in Google Sheets any time, and it will make sense: ordinary columns with ordinary headings.
• Nothing is locked in. Your records are in a format anyone can open, so you can print them, export them, back them up, or share them with an appraiser or an insurer without needing this site at all.

Setting it up

Step 1 — Start

1. Open collector-catalog.com in a new tab, so you can keep these instructions open beside it.
2. Click the green Set up my catalog button.

Step 2 — Choose how you are starting

You will see four choices. Pick the one that describes you:

• Start a new catalog — you have nothing written down yet, or it's on paper. This makes you an empty catalog to add to.
• Import a spreadsheet — you already keep your collection in Google Sheets or Excel. This brings the rows and the photographs across.
• Open one I made before — you've used this on another device.
• Add tabs to a catalog I have — you're already set up and want to bring more across, such as a wish list.

Step 3 — Sign in with Google

Google will ask you to choose an account and then show you what the app is asking permission to do. Read it — it should mention only files the app creates or that you select, and nothing else.

Step 4 — If you're importing, check the columns

The app reads your spreadsheet and shows you what it plans to do with each tab and each column before writing anything. You can change any of it. Two things worth a look:

• Which tabs to bring. Set anything you don't want to Skip this tab.
• Tabs that aren't part of your collection. A wish list is things you don't own; a sold list is things you no longer own. Mark those not part of my collection and they stay out of your item count and out of searches.

Your original spreadsheet is never changed. The import only reads it.

Step 5 — You're in

Your catalog opens. From here you can search it, click any item to see it in full, and use + Add to put something new in.

Using it day to day

Adding your first item

1. Click + Add, on the right above your items.
2. Choose which collection it belongs to at the top of the form.
3. Fill in what you know. Nothing is compulsory except giving it a name, a maker or a catalog number — you can come back and fill in the rest later.
4. Add photographs with Add photos. On a phone this offers the camera.
5. Click Save.

Fields that don't suit your collection

A duck call has no ISBN and a book has no rig mates. At the bottom of the Add form there is a line reading Fields shown for [collection]. Click it and you can tick exactly which optional fields that collection shows, and add fields of your own — a gauge, a patent number, whatever you keep track of.

Your choices are saved into your spreadsheet, so they apply on every device.

Putting it on your phone

Once it is on your home screen it opens like any other app, with its own icon and no browser bar in the way.

iPhone and iPad

1. Open collector-catalog.com in Safari. This does not work from Chrome on an iPhone.
2. Tap the Share button — the square with an arrow coming out of the top of it, at the bottom of the screen.
3. Scroll down the list of options and tap Add to Home Screen.
4. Tap Add, at the top right.

Android

1. Open collector-catalog.com in Chrome.
2. Tap the three dots at the top right of the screen.
3. Tap Add to Home screen, or Install app if that is what it says — they do the same thing.
4. Tap Add or Install to confirm.

Some Android phones use Samsung Internet rather than Chrome. There the menu is the three lines at the bottom right, then Add page to and Home screen.

Where your things actually are

Open Google Drive and you will find two items:

• My Collection Catalog — the spreadsheet holding every record.
• My Collection Catalog — Photos — a folder holding the photographs.

Both are yours. Rename them, move them, share them, download them, or delete them; none of that needs our permission, and nothing about this site can stop you.

If something goes wrong

“Access blocked” when signing in

That account has not been given access yet. Email collectorcatalog@gmail.com with the Google address you would like to use, and you will be added if there is a place free.

It asks me to sign in every single time

A sign-in lasts about an hour, then renews itself quietly. If you are asked every visit, your browser is probably blocking the cookies Google uses to remember you. In Safari: Settings › Safari and check that Prevent Cross-Site Tracking isn't causing it; in Chrome, check third-party cookies aren't blocked for this site.

My photographs aren't showing

Photographs are fetched from your Drive the first time and then kept, so the first load after adding a lot of them can be slow. If they never appear, sign out from the menu under your catalog's name and sign back in.

I want to use a different Google account

Click your catalog's name at the top of the page, then Sign out. You can then sign in as someone else. Your catalog is untouched — it's a file in Drive, and signing out of a browser has nothing to do with it.

Leaving

There is nothing to cancel and no account to close. Stop using the site and your catalog carries on existing in your Drive as a spreadsheet. If you also want to withdraw the app's access to your Google account, do it at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Set up my catalog