Codes as short as you want them

August 25, 2026

Say how long each part of your own code pattern is, with worked examples beside the box.

Open a line to read the whole story behind it.

• New Your own code pattern can now say how long each part is: {number:3} counts in three digits instead of six.

  Writing your own shape for a part number or a location code, you can now say how long each part is: {number:3} counts in three digits instead of six, {random:4} is four characters instead of six, and {number:4}-{random:6} does both at once. Written plainly, {number} and {random} mean exactly what they always did, so nothing you already wrote changes. A size can be anything from 1 to 24, and a number that outgrows the size you gave it gets longer rather than starting again at the beginning.

• Improved An Examples button beside the box opens eleven patterns you can press to use.

  Writing your own shape for a part number or a location code now has an Examples button beside the box. It opens a window over the page holding eleven patterns you could write, each shown with the code it would produce and a line saying who writes codes that way. Press one and it lands in the box, ready to have the word changed to your own, and the window closes behind you — as it does on its cross, on a press outside it, or on Escape. Under the patterns, five lines say what the box accepts: which characters are allowed around the words, what each word becomes, what a size may be, and how long a finished code may be.

• Fixed Saving without a code no longer fails when your catalogue already holds a very long run of digits.

  Saving a product or a location without filling in its code no longer fails when your catalogue already holds a code made of a very long run of digits. It now writes the next code as usual, counting on from the highest one it can actually count.