This morning a collector wrote to me. She had added eight dolls to her catalogue, and then it began refusing to save anything more — a message telling her the storage was full. She had done nothing wrong at all.
She was quite right to tell me, and I am glad she did. It turned out that browsers only allow a small amount of room for something like this, and photographs fill it very quickly. Eight dolls with a few pictures each was enough. Anyone with a proper collection would have run into the same wall sooner or later — so it wanted mending properly, not patching.
So the catalogue now keeps your collection somewhere far roomier. Hundreds of dolls with all their photographs, and no more nonsense about running out of space. There is nothing you need to do differently, and nothing to prepare — photographs are made a sensible size automatically as you add them.
And something rather nicer
Since I was in there anyway, I added the other things that had been gathering on my list. You can now choose the colours — eight of them, and I chose them to sit quietly alongside a collection rather than shout over it: Rose Chintz, Sage & Linen, Plum Velvet, Antique Gold, Teal Thread, Cherry Gingham, Charcoal & Pearl, and the original Cornflower.
You can also put a photograph of your own collection behind the title, and add your name underneath it, so that it reads as your catalogue rather than simply a catalogue. It is a small thing and it makes a surprising difference when you open it.
The help pages have been rewritten too, with proper answers to the questions collectors actually ask me — what that puzzling backup file is, where it hides once you have made one, and what to do when the dolls seem to have vanished.
Updates are free, always
If you already own the catalogue, this update costs you nothing, and neither will the next one. Your collection carries across on its own — your dolls, your clothes, your wishlist, all exactly where you left them.
Nearly everything in this version began as an email or a message from a collector. I keep a list as they come in — the puzzles, the small irritations, the things people expected to find and did not — and every so often I sit down and work through it. That is why I would rather you told me. One person mentioning something is often twenty people who never said anything at all.
So do write, even about small things, and even if you suspect you have done something silly — you almost certainly have not. It may not be mended the same week, but it goes on the list, and when it is mended everybody gets the benefit.
Petrana
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