Cat Fur Pattern Tracker - Catalog Cat Coat Patterns

What Is the Cat Fur Pattern Tracker?

The cat fur pattern tracker is a browser tool for building a personal catalog of cat coat patterns. A user enters a name, a description, and a category for each cat, optionally attaches a photo, and can later search and browse the saved entries.

The catalog is not stored on a server. Every entry, including any photo, is saved in the local storage of the browser being used. Clearing that browser's site data removes the catalog, and the catalog does not appear in a different browser or device.

How to Add a Cat Fur Pattern

Adding an entry requires filling in a short form:

1. Pattern Name – at least 3 characters long.
2. Pattern Description – at least 10 characters long.
3. Pattern Category – one of six fixed options: tabby, solid, bicolor, calico, tortoiseshell, or colorpoint.
4. Image (optional) – a photo chosen from the device's file picker. The tool reads the file and stores it as embedded image data rather than a link to an external file.

If the name is too short, the description is too short, or no category is chosen, the tool shows an error and does not save the entry. If a file is picked that is not an image, the tool rejects it. There is no separate step for cropping, resizing, or compressing the photo; the file is stored as read.

Submitting a valid entry adds it to the catalog and clears the form so another pattern can be entered right away.

How the Search Works

A single search box filters the catalog as the user types. The search checks two fields only: the pattern's name and its category. It does not check the description text.

The match is case-insensitive and works on partial text, so typing "tab" finds any entry with "tab" inside its name or category, such as "Tabby" or "Mackerel Tabby Kitten." There is no fuzzy matching for misspellings, and only one search term can be active at a time — the box does not support selecting several categories at once. Typing a new search term resets the view to the first page of results.

Cat Fur Pattern Categories

The tracker groups every entry into one of six categories:

• Solid: one uniform color across the whole coat, such as black, white, or cream. A recessive gene suppresses the striped tabby pattern that would otherwise show through.
• Tabby: the coat pattern seen in wildcats, including classic (wide, swirled markings), mackerel (narrow parallel stripes), spotted, and ticked (banded hairs with little visible pattern) variants.
• Bicolor: a solid or tabby color combined with patches of white fur, ranging from a few white hairs to mostly white coats.
• Calico: patches of black, orange, and white. It results from two X chromosomes carrying different color genes, so calico cats are almost always female.
• Tortoiseshell: a mottled mix of black and orange with little or no white. Like calico, this depends on having two X chromosomes and is mostly seen in females.
• Colorpoint: a pale body with darker fur on the ears, face, paws, and tail. It comes from a pigment gene that only activates in the cooler parts of the body, and is best known from Siamese cats.

These categories can overlap in real cats — a tabby cat can also be bicolor, for example — but each catalog entry is filed under only one of the six.

How Pagination Works

Entries are shown in a grid, 12 patterns per page. The number of pages is:

total pages = ⌈ number of matching patterns ÷ 12 ⌉

(the result is rounded up to the next whole number)

Worked example

A catalog holds 30 saved patterns and no search filter is active, so all 30 count as matches.

• total pages = ⌈30 ÷ 12⌉ = ⌈2.5⌉ = 3
• Page 1 shows patterns 1 through 12.
• Page 2 shows patterns 13 through 24.
• Page 3 shows the remaining 6 patterns, numbers 25 through 30.

If a search term narrows the results to, say, 7 matching patterns, the page count becomes ⌈7 ÷ 12⌉ = 1, and the "Next" button is disabled because there is only one page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the search box match words inside a pattern's description? No. It only checks the pattern name and the category, so a word that appears solely in the description will not bring up that entry.

Can more than one category be selected at the same time? No. There is one text search box, and it looks for a single term across name and category. There is no control for choosing several categories together.

Can custom tags be added to an entry, beyond the six categories? No. Every entry must use one of the six built-in categories: tabby, solid, bicolor, calico, tortoiseshell, or colorpoint. There is no separate tagging field.

Are the photos analyzed or compared automatically? No. The tool stores the uploaded image and displays it; it does not compare images to each other or detect coat patterns from a photo.

Does the catalog sync between devices or browsers? No. Data is saved only in the local storage of the browser in which it was entered. Using a different browser or device starts with an empty catalog.

Why does the tool reject a new entry? The most common reasons are a name under 3 characters, a description under 10 characters, no category selected, or an uploaded file that is not an image.