Tips and shortcuts

A few small things that make ColonyCat easier once you know them. None of them are required, you can use the system happily without ever reading this chapter. But they're nice to have.

Markdown cheat sheet

Several fields support markdown, a tiny formatting language: your public page description, message board posts and replies, and the terms and privacy addendums. Here's the whole thing:

**bold** → bold
*italics* → italics

# Big heading
## Smaller heading

- bullet
- another bullet

1. numbered
2. list

[link text](https://example.com) → clickable link

That's it. No HTML, no scripts, no images embedded inline. Keep it simple.

Keyboard shortcuts

ColonyCat doesn't ship with many, most navigation is one click, but here's the one it has:

This works in browser only, not on mobile.

Phone tips

Use my current location. When adding a colony or filing a report, the "Use my current location" button is faster than typing. Your browser asks permission first.

Save as home screen icon. On iPhone and Android you can save ColonyCat as a home screen icon. Open yourgroup.colonycat.org in your browser, tap Share → Add to Home Screen (iPhone) or three-dots → Install (Android). Opens like an app, no browser bars.

Photos straight from the camera. When you tap "Take or choose photo" on a phone, you get the camera + gallery picker. Photos auto-resize before upload, you don't have to crop or shrink them first.

Things that are easy to miss

The dashboard cards are clickable. Sick cats, Open TNR, Reports, tap any of the numbers to drill into the list.

Cat names support emoji. 🐈 Mr. Mittens is fine. Cute and finds well in search.

Editing trap nights and catches. On the TNR board, the ✏️ on a trap-night card edits the night (colony, traps, date, trapper). To update a cat, tap its card under "Cats in flight" to open that catch and change its status, dates, or volunteers.

The Map page has a list view too. If you have a lot of colonies, scroll past the map and you'll see a list of all of them, sorted by name.

Export your personal data as JSON. Profile page → Download my data. You'll get your account info, memberships, and passkeys. Org records (cats, colonies, etc.) are exported separately by your OrgAdmin from the Organization page.

Things we deliberately didn't build

These are real questions we get. Here's why we didn't add them:

• Cat adoption matching. ColonyCat is for community cats. Adoption is a different problem with different tools (Petfinder, Adopt-a-Pet, your local shelter). We point you to them.
• Trap-loaner inventory. Some rescues asked us to track which traps they've loaned to whom. We thought hard, decided it's a thin wrapper over a notebook. Use a notebook.
• Vet billing integration. Each rescue's vet relationship is different. We don't want to be in the middle of your invoices. Pay your vet however you usually do.

Asking for help

The best way to get help is right inside the app. Tap 🛟 Support in the menu (it's also in the footer) and open a ticket. Your message goes straight to us, and you can follow the reply without digging through your inbox.

When you open a ticket you pick a type so it lands in the right place:

• Bug, something is broken or doing the wrong thing.
• Feature request, something you wish it did.
• Question, you're not sure how something works.
• Feedback, a thought about how it's going.
• Other, anything that doesn't fit.

You can attach a screenshot to a ticket, which helps a lot for a bug. Each ticket carries a status you can watch as we work it: Open, In progress, Waiting (we need something from you), then Resolved or Closed when it's done. Reply on the ticket anytime to add more.

Track your tickets from the same Support page. If you're an OrgAdmin, you see every ticket for your group, so nothing your team reports slips through the cracks. Everyone else sees the tickets they opened.

For a bug, it speeds things up to include:

• What you were trying to do.
• What happened instead.
• The screenshot, if you have one.

If you're locked out and can't sign in to open a ticket, email hello@colonycat.org instead and we'll sort it out.

We never need your password or your card number, ever. Anyone who claims to be from ColonyCat and asks for either is not us, please report them by forwarding their message to us.

Where you are now

• You know the small shortcuts that make ColonyCat faster day to day.
• You know how to reach us if you get stuck.

The last two chapters cover the calendar and the member board, the tools for coordinating with your team.

→ Next: Chapter 12: The calendar