Recreating Delicious Library in 2025?(dingyu.me)
dingyu.me
Recreating Delicious Library in 2025?
https://dingyu.me/blog/recreating-delicious-library-in-2025
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This is amusing to read now because this post bemoans the transition from useful applications to pretty ones. Little did they know the next stop in that line was that the pretty applications became not so pretty without picking up anything new. Mac software today would leave you begging for a Delicious Library…
I think the worst part of modern Mac software is that there really isn't any. More often than not new software is just the web application wrapped in Electron.
In my view MacOS has the healthiest native software market of any OS. What software is missing? I have state of the art native text editors, photo editors, music production programs, calendars, e-mail, etc.
Empiric evidence suggests that macOs does not have any interesting software. People go to great lengths to run Windows programs (through Wine, Steam Proton, VM integrations), and Linux stuff (Docker desktop, WSL/WSLG, X servers). macOs stuff seems to be too useless for that kind of effort.
Microsoft spent decades and billions of dollars buying their way to market dominance. They didn't achieve it through having a superior product, they achieved it through bullying. Software developers were forced to write software for Windows in order to reach an audience.
The fact that people will choose a different platform and begrudgingly emulate the software that's stuck on Windows is a knock against Windows, not a knock against the other platforms.
The fact that people will choose a different platform and begrudgingly emulate the software that's stuck on Windows is a knock against Windows, not a knock against the other platforms.
Those users aren't really what I would consider "people", and they should probably use Linux if they want to run software that is especially designed for that platform, such as Docker.
Of course if your requirement is that you use specialized Linux tools, then anything that is not Linux will not satisfy you.
Of course if your requirement is that you use specialized Linux tools, then anything that is not Linux will not satisfy you.
> Those users aren't really what I would consider "people"
I think you want to edit that.
Apart from that piece of advice, I don’t see how your comment relates to mine, and have nothing to add.
I think you want to edit that.
Apart from that piece of advice, I don’t see how your comment relates to mine, and have nothing to add.
You're focusing on tools and not on outcomes in your previous post. The purpose of a computer is not to use a certain tool, but to achieve a result. The purpose of a car is not to burn a certain kind of fuel, but to transport people. What matters is if it can do that and with what comfort and what cost.
Macs are lacking compared to other platforms when it comes to games, which everybody admits. You can say that it is lacking as a server, but I would doubt that. More expensive yes, but you could serve anything you'd like from it if you want to.
When it comes to very industry specific software, which is used by maybe 3 companies worldwide, those applications do not have any importance for comparing platforms.
Macs are lacking compared to other platforms when it comes to games, which everybody admits. You can say that it is lacking as a server, but I would doubt that. More expensive yes, but you could serve anything you'd like from it if you want to.
When it comes to very industry specific software, which is used by maybe 3 companies worldwide, those applications do not have any importance for comparing platforms.
In that sense (having software for the most common of activities), all mainstream OSes (and some non-mainstream ones) have a “healthy native app ecosystem”. This is pointless copium.
What matters is stuff for which there are no workable alternatives elsewhere.
I can try and write a condescending automotive metaphor, if you like those, but I’d prefer not to.
What matters is stuff for which there are no workable alternatives elsewhere.
I can try and write a condescending automotive metaphor, if you like those, but I’d prefer not to.
> What matters is stuff for which there are no workable alternatives elsewhere.
But we have to limit ourselves to somewhat common use cases. If a company is making a piece of software especially for one or two big clients in their industry, then that has nothing to say about any personal computing platform.
Your example Docker is software which has been especially created to deal with the shortcomings of Linux. Of course we cannot expect it to be great on any other platform. Likewise, we cannot blame MacOS for lacking specific software that has been made by people who explicitly hate Apple, such as a lot of self hosted and open source stuff.
Most Mac users do not mess about with virtual machines or WSL/WSLG, as in your examples. But there are myriad personal and professional use cases that are supported by good native software. In comparison Linux is lacking in native apps. No good photo editor, no good office suite, no good e-mail client. So I wouldn't call it a strong platform if we compare.
And it isn't copium to me. It's quality of life question to be able to use native software, and as a non-programmer I can be more productive with GUI software that isn't some laggy cloud service.
But we have to limit ourselves to somewhat common use cases. If a company is making a piece of software especially for one or two big clients in their industry, then that has nothing to say about any personal computing platform.
Your example Docker is software which has been especially created to deal with the shortcomings of Linux. Of course we cannot expect it to be great on any other platform. Likewise, we cannot blame MacOS for lacking specific software that has been made by people who explicitly hate Apple, such as a lot of self hosted and open source stuff.
Most Mac users do not mess about with virtual machines or WSL/WSLG, as in your examples. But there are myriad personal and professional use cases that are supported by good native software. In comparison Linux is lacking in native apps. No good photo editor, no good office suite, no good e-mail client. So I wouldn't call it a strong platform if we compare.
And it isn't copium to me. It's quality of life question to be able to use native software, and as a non-programmer I can be more productive with GUI software that isn't some laggy cloud service.
What specific piece of software are you missing on a mac?
Aside from games, or industry-specific apps (like the goddamn KNX configurator, or CNC controllers), everything is there, at least for me, and with consistent and stable user experience.
Aside from games, or industry-specific apps (like the goddamn KNX configurator, or CNC controllers), everything is there, at least for me, and with consistent and stable user experience.
I don’t use a mac. As I said — people do not try to run mac-exclusive software elsewhere, even though that’s the norm for most other platforms. That means that there is not enough software, or it’s not sufficiently desirable.
> Aside from games, or industry-specific software, everything is there
This is funny. Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system, and public health… what have the Romans ever done for us?
> Aside from games, or industry-specific software, everything is there
This is funny. Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system, and public health… what have the Romans ever done for us?
Or we could admit that UI design didn't start in 2004 and skeuomorphism vs. flat is a false dichotomy.
When I reminisce with people about that age, we mostly fondly remember how much fun software still was back then. Sure Disco was just a thin veneer over OS functionality but it was absolutely hilarious when you ran it. I still miss Apple's "shredder" animation when removing items from the iOS 6 Apple Passbook, and how OS X widgets had this crazy water ripple effect when you dropped them.
There was definitely a whimsicality in Mac OS going far back, both first- and third-party, that has receded lately. I miss Time Machine's wormhole animation, the iOS 6 pull-to-refresh "booger", and the Shift-key slow-motion modifier.
The new iPhone Mirroring app exemplifies this. A few years ago, Apple would have given it a fun name like Magic Mirror or Teleport. Instead we got an unimaginative name and an icon with a grey background and a centered image of an iPhone. Clever.
The new iPhone Mirroring app exemplifies this. A few years ago, Apple would have given it a fun name like Magic Mirror or Teleport. Instead we got an unimaginative name and an icon with a grey background and a centered image of an iPhone. Clever.
> A few years ago, Apple would have given it a fun name like Magic Mirror or Teleport.
A few years ago, Apple would have never shipped such a feature because the conventional design wisdom within the company would be that the user problems that this solution aims to solve can be better solved in other ways (that’s why we got features like handoff, continuity, etc).
A feature like this shipping is indicative of a greater mindset shift - perhaps a greater willingness to interpret user requests more literally (not too dissimilar from the MacBook Pro redesign going back to having all the ports).
People want faster horses? Well let’s breed faster horses for them, we’ve got the best horse breeding program in the world!
A few years ago, Apple would have never shipped such a feature because the conventional design wisdom within the company would be that the user problems that this solution aims to solve can be better solved in other ways (that’s why we got features like handoff, continuity, etc).
A feature like this shipping is indicative of a greater mindset shift - perhaps a greater willingness to interpret user requests more literally (not too dissimilar from the MacBook Pro redesign going back to having all the ports).
People want faster horses? Well let’s breed faster horses for them, we’ve got the best horse breeding program in the world!
I feel like Time Machine is still too whimsical, especially how it blacks out every monitor except your primary one whenever you try to restore files. And restoring files takes a while as it tries to load your backups from some spinning rust.
I was a happy Disco user. A lot of the Mac apps from that era were fun and made me want to find excuses to use them, rather than look for excuses to avoid what might otherwise feel like work. In the case of Delicious Library that would be the unpleasantness that would most likely be using a spreadsheet to track similar data and a lot of manual data entry.
Going the opposite way with discs, to rip my DVD collection at the time, I used RitIt. While the UI was seemingly unnecessary, it is initially what led me to find the concept of ripping all my DVDs more tolerable. After the novelty wore off, it had a feature to automatically start ripping on a disc being inserted, and would auto-eject at the end. This let me keep a stack of DVDs next to the computer and simply feed in the next disc when I saw one sticking out. After a few days I was done. I probably would have put this off for years (or forever) with more utilitarian software. The same can be said for AppZapper. Is it silly to make a ray gun sound when uninstalling an app, sure, but it makes it fun to delete unused apps, which is something a lot of people never do.
Where I think some of this software really got a bad name was so much of it becoming abandonware. TheHitList todo app was really hyped, and I got it in a software bundle (MacHeist or something), which was popular at the time. However, it seemed like once the dev had their money, they disappeared. Once burned me a couple times, I became wary of investing in any app that looked too nice…
I do miss a lot of those apps, and the hardware, of that era. It has so much charm. Great third party software devs who seemed to really have passion for what they were building, were one of the big reasons I enjoyed using OS X so much in that era, and a big reason to pay the Apple tax. I still use Transmit from Panic from time to time, and find it much more enjoyable than something like FileZilla (which was what seemed to be the standard last time I looked at other FTP apps years ago).
Going the opposite way with discs, to rip my DVD collection at the time, I used RitIt. While the UI was seemingly unnecessary, it is initially what led me to find the concept of ripping all my DVDs more tolerable. After the novelty wore off, it had a feature to automatically start ripping on a disc being inserted, and would auto-eject at the end. This let me keep a stack of DVDs next to the computer and simply feed in the next disc when I saw one sticking out. After a few days I was done. I probably would have put this off for years (or forever) with more utilitarian software. The same can be said for AppZapper. Is it silly to make a ray gun sound when uninstalling an app, sure, but it makes it fun to delete unused apps, which is something a lot of people never do.
Where I think some of this software really got a bad name was so much of it becoming abandonware. TheHitList todo app was really hyped, and I got it in a software bundle (MacHeist or something), which was popular at the time. However, it seemed like once the dev had their money, they disappeared. Once burned me a couple times, I became wary of investing in any app that looked too nice…
I do miss a lot of those apps, and the hardware, of that era. It has so much charm. Great third party software devs who seemed to really have passion for what they were building, were one of the big reasons I enjoyed using OS X so much in that era, and a big reason to pay the Apple tax. I still use Transmit from Panic from time to time, and find it much more enjoyable than something like FileZilla (which was what seemed to be the standard last time I looked at other FTP apps years ago).
I thought it was wonderful until I realized all the amazon links were rewritten to be amazon associate links (even though I paid for the app)
Does that actually negatively affect your use of the app?
come on.
How do you feel when the television you bought uploads your viewing history for profit? Or the car you purchased sells your driving habits?
This app was purchased, there was no "this is FREE because we can see and sell your whole cd/book collection info"
How do you feel when the television you bought uploads your viewing history for profit? Or the car you purchased sells your driving habits?
This app was purchased, there was no "this is FREE because we can see and sell your whole cd/book collection info"
> How do you feel when the television you bought uploads your viewing history for profit? Or the car you purchased sells your driving habits?
I mean, I don't disagree on a philosophical level, but on a day-to-day I'm fairly stuck using both of those things.
The world we live in is obviously less than ideal, and I'm not sure I'd condemn a small software developer out of hand for participating in capitalism...
I mean, I don't disagree on a philosophical level, but on a day-to-day I'm fairly stuck using both of those things.
The world we live in is obviously less than ideal, and I'm not sure I'd condemn a small software developer out of hand for participating in capitalism...
Momentarily mistook this for https://del.icio.us/, but related only by name.
I miss skeuomorphism. With good UX it makes great UI. It's weird considering I have my head inside a terminal most of the time but I was fond of those UI.
I wonder if formal studies exist that measure things like "discoverbility" or productivity for normal users.
I wonder if formal studies exist that measure things like "discoverbility" or productivity for normal users.
It's cyclical; here's an attempt from the 90s: http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/phone.htm
No doubt aggressive skeuomorphism will be back again at some point.t
No doubt aggressive skeuomorphism will be back again at some point.t
I'd totally pay for a Linux distro that resembles early Mac OS X's desgin.
Man, were those GUIs back then good- human, quirky, trying to merge into the memories of the users of the real world. Not the abstract monstrosities towards which all template arts decay too (architecture comes to mind).
I'm actually working on an app to replace my Delicious Library, but at least at first solely focused on books and supporting multiple users and features I missed in the original.
If all goes well I expect to have early version ready by middle of this year. While some features will require subscription, features not incurring ongoing costs won't. I like to think of it as an example of social software for introverts :)
I am hesitant to talk about details, but I haven't felt so excited about something in a long time.
If all goes well I expect to have early version ready by middle of this year. While some features will require subscription, features not incurring ongoing costs won't. I like to think of it as an example of social software for introverts :)
I am hesitant to talk about details, but I haven't felt so excited about something in a long time.
That's awesome. I'd like to follow up on your progress. Is there a Twitter account, mailing list, or wishlist I can follow/join?
I made a web delicious-alike many years ago called Beep My Stuff that I happily shut down. No regrets, I hated it.
What I discovered was:
* amazon (at the time) will aggressively shut you down by cutting off the only "viable" access to "barcode to product" data.
* barcode databases cost a lot of money and are full of utter drivel.
* people had absolutely VAST DVD/VHS porn collections that they want to share
* there is more red tape in the US then you expect. As a UK citizen I was shocked by how sclerotic any action is in the US.
* people were and now almost completely have moved to digital "stuff" although I hope that changes.
What I discovered was:
* amazon (at the time) will aggressively shut you down by cutting off the only "viable" access to "barcode to product" data.
* barcode databases cost a lot of money and are full of utter drivel.
* people had absolutely VAST DVD/VHS porn collections that they want to share
* there is more red tape in the US then you expect. As a UK citizen I was shocked by how sclerotic any action is in the US.
* people were and now almost completely have moved to digital "stuff" although I hope that changes.
This sounds like a really good story. Is there a postmortem written up somewhere?
> Sustainable Pricing: A subscription service (I know some people prefer one-time payments, but subscriptions are financially sustainable).
Managing dozens of subscriptions that drain money out of your wallet every month isn't sustainable for users.
Managing dozens of subscriptions that drain money out of your wallet every month isn't sustainable for users.
% ls
Sorry, you need to renew your subscription for 'ls'.
Would you like to renew it now? (Yes) _If it’s not sustainable for software makers, it’s not sustainable for users.
I think it's about time you built it. No better time than now.
ps: your RSS feed is advertised as https://dingyu.me/blog/feed.xml but is in fact https://dingyu.me/feed.xml (I guessed that as I was adding it to my RSS aggregator)
ps: your RSS feed is advertised as https://dingyu.me/blog/feed.xml but is in fact https://dingyu.me/feed.xml (I guessed that as I was adding it to my RSS aggregator)
Thanks! The RSS feed has been fixed.
I feel like most people just use the Arr suite of apps to track these things?
https://wiki.servarr.com/
I guess not an all in one solution but lots of strong features for libraries. Readarr isn’t great if I’m honest.
https://wiki.servarr.com/
I guess not an all in one solution but lots of strong features for libraries. Readarr isn’t great if I’m honest.
Aren't there apps where you just take a picture of your shelves and it identifies and catalogs everything there?
No. The last thing we need is yet another subscription priced data silo roach motel that sequesters your data. Any replacement I would consider will have to be open source with an open database.
This may meet your requirements
https://www.librarything.com/app/
https://www.librarything.com/app/
Thanks for the recommendation! I do use Delicious Library for other things than media like electronics or cameras, however.
[deleted]
https://www.shelf.im/ comes to mind
Yes, please. I always wanted a peer to peer version of it in a way. :P
I created a similar product to Delicious Library years before its launch and peer to peer version of it was the direction I had been planning to take it. This was all long before mobile devices, long before Apple SDK's had any support for syncing such data, etc but the idea was there and wasn't just mine, I had users requesting this as well.
But alas the revenue dried up with Delicious Library hitting the scene. It received crazy levels of press about how beautiful it was. I recall feeling at the time like they were paying the press to cover their product but knowing what I know now, I'm quite certain that was the case. The reviews never mentioned any competitors. There were several all at a cheaper prices with more tons more features.
But alas the revenue dried up with Delicious Library hitting the scene. It received crazy levels of press about how beautiful it was. I recall feeling at the time like they were paying the press to cover their product but knowing what I know now, I'm quite certain that was the case. The reviews never mentioned any competitors. There were several all at a cheaper prices with more tons more features.
“Tons more features” is exactly why I would prefer Delicious Library over them.
What’d you learn to make you more certain that was the cases?
This sounds like a really good story. Do you have postmortem written up somewhere?
> In the past year or so, Mac development had shifted from applications providing new functionality that appeared at the dawn of OS X to applications (and ideas) built around flash and sizzle, with plenty of marketing hype to fuel the fire. his had created something of a toxic atmosphere in the Mac development world. A rift between the old school, with its plain but functional apps, and the new school of flashy but frivolous apps, has developed. ... I dubbed this new school “The Delicious Generation”.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2006/11/06/the-delicious-gene...
Apple adopted a similar interface for Newsstand on iOS and it seemed to be widely reviled during the pushback against skeuomorphism.