A NEW site with SLOWLY Stamps information
A new and interesting site for SLOWLY Stamps fans
This morning a comment on my Reddit topic announcing the sad closing of the super useful SlowlyStamps.info site, got my attention. This user mentioned and added the URL for a similar site, which I assumed the poster, No-Advantage2155 might be involved with.
I took notice, of course, as we are searching for alternatives. And visited the site, and later returned to get more familiar with it.
And it's quite neat!
As shown by the banner image above, which presents all 6 stamps on the 'A Bug's Life' stamp set.
The site doesn't have an About page or documentation on how to use its features. But they are there, and I am discovering things I had dreamed of having on our Slowly WIKI project – yet, still don't have. 🤨
Like, easily showing a complete stamp set (see Bug's Life, above). Or, all the stamps in a given country. Which this Blogger site DOES with ease if you discover how.
All the Australian Stamps, you say?
Easily done, see this link. Or a snapshot?
(For this snapshot I zoomed out so they would all fit in the screen)
Accessing the 'LABELS' menu
...is the key to custom listings. The 'Tag' icon on the right top corner (just below the Search box) is the way to access the Labels menu.
Sometimes it might not be on screen. If this happens, hover over the small Black vertical bar shown :
...and it expands to the Left side, showing the 'Labels' word, underlined; as it is a link to sorted category listings.
The Listing has many items – stamp sets, country names (which display all the stamps for a given country), whole categories like 'Achievements', etc.
Expanding the Listings
Click on the Tag icon, and the labels list appears. Scroll down and select what you desire.
Achievements category is extensive.
The functionality here is outstanding – all the stamps are Categorized and so can be displayed in many ways. Individually, as part of a set, or as part of a Country's full stamps list, or even a Category like 'Achievements' or 'National Flags'. Neat work! 😎👍
National Flags category is extensive. Scaled down for blog post.
There is a SEARCH function as well
...which works as intended. A search for 'Hello' shows all the uber rare and desirable 'Hello Kitty' stamps and sets.
Search results for 'Hello'
I am impressed and happy to see this new site – and to report on it to share what it can do, so others will enjoy it as well.
Thank you /u/No-Advantage2155 for sharing this, and for the work that went into this site. Well done!
I had seen some snapshots posted in 'New Slowly Releases' before that were taken on this site – the cute angled snapshots view is really distinctive and I wonder HOW they had obtained that image... 😀👍
Different Site Views are possible
At the Top Left corner, a pull down menu offers some possible Layouts for displaying the site – and all the snapshots posted here were taken with the 'Snapshot' layout.
The Snapshot layout is pretty
There are other possible Layouts – some are less informative or useful, the 'FlipCard' one is interesting :
The Flipcard layout is more compact and good for a quick view
Will it dynamically update, adding new API entries?
Not at this time, I have seen the latest batch of Slowly stamps being added, but it took a couple of days for them to appear there.
We can access the newest Stamps additions via SlowlyStamps.info for now, but the site is closing on December 4, 2021, and we will be left without an easy, publicly available tool to monitor new releases.
Work is in progress for a Google Docs spreadsheet which can monitor the SLOWLY API, and show any new entries as they appear. A current snapshot :
Click snapshot for larger image
Edit : We now have a working and publicly accessible spreadsheet – see details on “How do people spot the new SLOWLY stamps?”.
Famous Last Words
Special Thank You to the folks behind this wonderful app — all the hard working people at Slowly Communications.
Letters we share, with pen pals all over the World, via the magic of the Slowly App. A modern day take in the traditional penpal experience.
Come and join us, if you are not yet using Slowly.
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