The web app

Installing it#

Ratcatcher works in a browser tab, but it’s better installed. Installed, it opens from its own icon like any other app, and it works without a connection.

On iPhone and iPad

On iPhone and iPad, the recommended way to enjoy Ratcatcher is the app from the App Store: it keeps your characters in your own iCloud, syncs them between your devices, and has nothing to fear from a browser clearing its data. If you’d rather use the web app, install it from Safari:

1. Open app.ratcatcher.quest in Safari.
2. Tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
3. Tap Add.
4. Open Ratcatcher from your Home Screen, and use it from there.

Install it before you trust it with a character. Safari deletes what a site keeps after seven days without use, but not what an app on the Home Screen keeps. Made characters in Safari already? The installed app starts with a library of its own, so back up in Safari first, then restore the backup in the installed app.

On Android, and in Chrome or Edge on a computer

Where the browser can install web apps, Ratcatcher offers Install Ratcatcher in your library while it’s empty, and in Settings › Storage. Tap it, then confirm. The browser’s own menu can install it too.

In other browsers

Ratcatcher runs in a tab in any modern browser. If your browser installs web apps, its menu offers to install Ratcatcher; if it doesn’t, keep using the tab, and back up from time to time. Settings › Storage says whether Ratcatcher is installed.

Where your characters are kept#

The web app has no account and no server. Your characters, their portraits, your content packs, your own entries and your settings are kept in the browser’s storage, on this device, and nowhere else. Another browser, or another device, has a library of its own, and nothing syncs between them.

Settings › Storage shows what the browser reports: whether it has agreed to keep your library when the device runs short of space, how much space the library takes, whether Ratcatcher is installed, and when you last backed up. If the browser hasn’t agreed yet, Ask the Browser to Keep Them asks again.

What can delete it

• Clearing the browser’s data, or its history together with site data, deletes the library too.
• Safari deletes what a site keeps after seven days without use, unless the site is on the Home Screen. A library in a Safari tab you don’t open for a week can be gone.
• A browser short of space may delete what a site keeps, unless it agreed to keep it.
• A private window keeps nothing once it closes, and Ratcatcher can’t tell it’s in one. Use a normal window, or export before you close it.

So back up from time to time, before you clear the browser’s data, and before you change browsers. When it’s been a while, your library reminds you in one line, with a Back Up… button.

Two libraries on iPhone and iPad

Ratcatcher on the Home Screen and Ratcatcher in a Safari tab keep separate libraries: the installed app starts with an empty one. To move to the installed app, back up your library in Safari, then restore the backup in the app.

Backing up and restoring#

A backup is one file, ending in .ratcatcher-library, that holds your whole library: every character, the content packs you imported, your own entries and your settings. Keep it somewhere other than the browser: in Files, on a cloud drive, on another computer.

1. Open Settings › Storage and choose Back Up Library….
2. Check what it holds.
3. Choose Download Backup, or, where the browser can share files, Share Backup… to send it to Files, iCloud Drive, AirDrop or another app.

Restoring

1. Choose Restore Library…, in Settings › Storage or in your library while it’s empty, and pick the backup file.
2. Check what it holds. For each character your library already has, choose Replace, Keep Both or Skip. Characters your library doesn’t have are added.
3. Tap Restore.

Content packs and your own entries are merged with the ones you have, the newest copy of each winning. Switch off Restore Settings to keep this browser’s settings.

A backup is for the web app. The apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac read character files and packs instead: see Moving characters and packs.

Moving characters and packs#

Nothing syncs between the web app and the apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac, or between two browsers. A character moves as a file instead, in either direction: the same character file the apps export and import.

1. Export the character where it is: Export Character… in the sheet’s More menu, or Export… on its card. Then Share File… sends it (on a Mac, Save As… saves it), and in the web app Download saves it with your downloads.
2. Send or save the file any way you like: AirDrop, Files, iCloud Drive, mail, or any folder.
3. Import it there with Import Character…, in your library.

Importing adds a new character, and the original stays where it was. From then on they’re two characters: a change to one doesn’t reach the other.

To take every character at once, choose Export All Characters… in Settings › Storage. Each character becomes a file of its own, for Import Character… in the apps.

Content packs

A content pack, a file ending in .ratpack, moves the same way: import it with Import Pack… in the Compendium’s Content Packs, in the web app or the apps. Your own entries travel as one pack, made by Export Custom Entries…. Content packs has the details.

Updates#

The web app updates itself. When a new version has been downloaded, a line at the top of the page says A new version of Ratcatcher is ready and offers Reload; nothing changes until you tap it, so a sheet in the middle of a session is never swapped under you. Settings › About shows the web app’s version and, under What’s New, what changed in each release.

What’s different#

The web app is the same sheet, with these differences from the apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac:

• No iCloud sync. Each browser keeps its own library, and characters move between devices as files.
• No Image Playground. A portrait comes from a file or a photo, or from an image dropped on its frame.
• No card and nothing to buy. The web app is free, shows no card for another indie app and has no Supporter purchase. If you’d like to give something back, Buy Me a Coffee, under your character list, opens a page where you can.
• Printing goes through the browser. Print or Export PDF… opens the printed sheet, and Print… opens the browser’s print dialog, which can also save it as a PDF.
• In Settings, Storage takes the place of Sync and Supporter.

And nothing you enter leaves your device: the web app sends no error reports, loads no fonts or scripts from anywhere else, and only counts its visits, with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. The privacy policy has the details.