[Nebagakid]

What does the world hold forth yet bar for Delicious Library?

More Social Networking jaunts? Bonjour-enchanced libraries?

One can only speculate, unless he/she/she-he is a Delicious Monster themselves

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Just wondering, are you a employee of DM?

[Nebagakid]

nope

[danmc]

Some good printing features (like maybe CD inserts with track listing and song length)?
Integration with iTunes on some level?
Online integration?

Just hoping.

[krove]

I want to see Bonjour-shared libraries, so I can see collections of other people on my network.

[wjsdelicious]

The original goal of Delicious Library was to enter your collection _AND_ share it. I think 1.0 did a good job at the first part, but we ran out of time to do the second very well, beyond our loaning features. There are some third-party solutions out there that people were nice enough to make, but we feel that integrating sharing is really important to the original vision.

That said, I can't promise any particular timeframe for any particular feature. I mean, this is the problem with talking about software -- people will hear about something that's being worked on, misconstrue what they're hearing to be a promise, and then be mad when there's an update and a feature is "missing."

As always, my advice to consumers is: if you like what the software does TODAY, buy it. If you think you're only going to like the next version, WAIT until that version comes out before you buy.

I can tell you we're working on a ton of features. Not all of them will make it into 2.0; we simply don't have time. They're all really, really awesome, and putting some of them off for 3.0 is really killing us.

I can also tell you that 2.0 WILL use CoreData (on SQL) unless something catastrophic happens (e.g., we find some surprise, killer bug). It's been running on CoreData for almost a year now internally and, for larger collections, the speedup is beyond belief. (For smaller collections, where everything was in-memory anyways, there won't be any appreciable difference from this.)

We haven't announced a release date yet; it's still a ways off. We got delayed because I spent five months rewriting the iSight scanning stuff from scratch for 1.6 (a free upgrade), because the new, internal iSights in MacBooks and iMacs don't focus, and we strongly suspect that all new Macs are going to have internal iSights, which meant that if we didn't get non-focusing cameras working we'd have to sell everyone external iSights or bluetooth scanners, and we'd really prefer to just sell the $40 software and have it work. (Luckily, the new algorithm works great on internal cameras, and we were able to tune up the old algorithm for external iSights as well, so it's much faster and is 200x as sensitive.)

-Wil

[zebrafx]

Wil

What I'd dearly love is for Delicious Library to work in with LibraryThing. I love both - DL is desktop based, mac-based and looks great, LT is web based, and great for sharing.

I really like DL's issuing capability - but find its lack of sync-ing ability between my iMac and Powerbook a handicap. I like the fact that I can access LT anywhere I have access to the Net, but of course if I don't (have a net connection) I can't access my data..

I know I'm probably asking for / suggesting the impossible - but if DL could either work with LT or develop the capabilities of LT, that would be great.

Cheers

Jeremy

[wjsdelicious]

I was contacted by the LibraryThing guy and he said he's written a little importer from DL. I haven't used it, myself.

[weldon]

I've got all kinds of ideas. One thing that would be nice in the UI is to move the search box to the top right location (to be more like Spotlight). Another feature that would be welcome is "custom sort order" so I can sort the Harry Potter books by release rather than by strict alphabetical title. I've got lots more - I'll post later.

[Tom C]

Originally Posted by wjsdelicious

The original goal of Delicious Library was to enter your collection _AND_ share it. I think 1.0 did a good job at the first part, but we ran out of time to do the second very well, beyond our loaning features.

My #1 complaint with Delicious Library (and its competitors) is the loaning features.

When I go to a "real" library, they scan my library card, then scan my books, and never need to look up anything.

With DL, if I check out books to friends, I have to find the book in the database and drag it to the borrower. You used the UPC code to enter the book in the first place; why not make it so you can use the UPC code to check out books? Select the borrower, then scan away at as many books/CDs as you're checking out.

If you implement such a feature, it would also be nice to have a barcode printing feature so you can print barcodes for older books that don't have them.

My #2 complaint is that you don't have lookup sources other than Amazon (especially Library of Congress) and don't save the ISBN number (if different than the UPC), but I'm sure you've heard that a zillion times before.

[foodog]

If you scan an item you have in your library, Delicious Library jumps to that item, which you can then drag to a friend. I admit, it would be good functionality to be able to click a friend then scan a bunch of stuff out to them, but I think most people borrow from friends with a little less vigor than the public library.

I can't speak to the possibility of using sources other than Amazon (i.e., it's a can of worms I don't want to get into right now), but I can say that the Amazon number is the same as the ISBN, so even though it's not labeled as such, Delicious Library does retain the ISBN.

-Mike

[zebrafx]

Originally Posted by wjsdelicious

I was contacted by the LibraryThing guy and he said he's written a little importer from DL. I haven't used it, myself.

What I'd like is to be able to effectively import FROM LibraryThing to DL

I've tried doing it from the file that LT produces - DL imports the books, but doesn't only import 'new' books - it imports everything. That's no good if I want to keep the two systems in sync.

Cheers

Jeremy

[GreenMnM]

How about an easy way to export your list of DVDs (or whatever, I guess, I only track my DVDs) to a Web page? In list view I can copy and paste the list into an Excel file and clean things up to post it online, but a direct export would be great. My family checks-up on the DVDs I already have on my Web site when it comes to birthday/holiday season... Thanks!

-Doug

[weldon]

That reminds me - it would be nice to track a wishlist in DL.

[Nebagakid]

I think being able to keep track of items that are not in your library is a nifty idea.

[foodog]

You kind of can. Let's say you see an item on Amazon you like, but don't own? Drag and drop it into Delicious Library right from Safari. Then, go to "My Info" and set the owner to "Wish List." This is also a great way to keep track of books you've borrowed from friends on the public library.

-Mike

[Tom C]

Originally Posted by Delicious Monster

I admit, it would be good functionality to be able to click a friend then scan a bunch of stuff out to them, but I think most people borrow from friends with a little less vigor than the public library.

It doesn't happen very often with books, true, but there will come occasions when it would be handy. I've had friends borrow 4 or 5 CDs at once.

It doesn't seem to me like it's a feature that would be terribly difficult to code, but then, I'm not a professional and may not be thinking of all of the complications.

[edit: fixed typo]

[foodog]

No, you're right, it would be useful, not only for the borrowing, but for, say, creating a shelf and scanning a bunch of books directly into it.

-Mike

[twomousebuttons]

I remember that some time ago, it was said that DL was meant to make social networking, which is a very basic thing in our soon to be web 2.0 world, and which was a great idea 18 months ago when DL was launched.

I am now wondering if there is a chance to see great interaction in DL such as the one we find with dabbleDB ?

Whatever happens, open a line for the 2.0 release : I want to get it ASAP :-)

[hifi]

Hey Wil,

Care to dish any dirt on future 'Wish list' capabilities and more 'robust tracking of movie viewing' (i.e. date last viewed, number of times viewed, some sort of iCal integration for tracking viewing habits would be nice, I do this all manually now).

I am looking forward to version 2.0, heres to hoping some of the above ideas are addressed.

Edit: Also, have you given any thought into 'new movie/music/book release' integration/notification (this is related to better wish list capabilities).

[hullslap]

I have a request from my Fiancee who is a Children's Librarian in FL...

"Please, please, please come out with a version of Delicious Library that can work across a big network and many libraries. We are stuck using ugly, nasty, Windows-based software because there's nothing else. Help us Obi-Wil, you're our only hope!"

I get asked about this a lot.

[danmc]

I thought of something else that would be a nicety. Support for iTMS album artwork - that is to say, maybe something like double-clicking to get the full 600X600 resolution of what much of the artwork is that comes from the iTMS. As it is now you can paste in whatever you want but then it gets downsampled. It would be nice (not necessarily a necessity) to retain a larger number of those pixels.

[weldon]

OK. Here's a few more...

Smartshelves - I'd like to use these just like smart playlists in iTunes where I could create a new "smartshelf" and then define the criteria used to place (or remove) media on that shelf. It would be nice if they worked across media types as well, so I could have a Lord of the Rings smartshelf with DVD's, soundtrack CD's, and books if I wanted. Mostly, I would use it for book genre categories. I do this now manually, and I dream of having it automated.

UI updates - I'd like to see some indication on the screen of how many items are in the current view. Again, I would take cues from iTunes to show the number of items, the number of pages, minutes of movies, total tracks and minutes from CD's and so on.

Printed reports - I'd like to be able to create custom reports ala DVD Profiler. In particular, I want to print thumbnail pages with DVD covers so I can quickly scan which DVD's I have. I include the DVD jukebox slot number on the DVD Profiler report so that ohters (babysitters, etc.) can find the movie easily.

Purchase Info - the main reason I still track DVD's in DVD Profiler is that I have a complete purchase history there. Date purchased, place purchased, price paid. I can run reports that show I have only paid 40% of the total retail value of my DVD's and which ones I got for free, etc. One thing that's very convenient about DVD Profiler is that the program prompts me to enter the purchase info wheneven I add a DVD to the "purchased" or "owned" lists. I'd like to see Delicious Library prompt me for purchase info when I add the item to my collection. Use auto-completion in the "vendor" field to quickly re-use an existing vendor.

Community-driven Data - the coolest part of DVD Profiler (but also sometimes the most frustrating) is the community generated "profiles" for DVD's that have complete cast and crew info, detailed info on packaging, soundtracks, features, easter eggs, etc. It used to be a huge pain as users would change details back and forth if they disagreed on the interpretation of the "correct" info, but now there is a peer-review process in place to try and vet the data before the main database is updated. It works pretty well and was what I imagined for Guzzlefish.com (which was great while it lasted). Guzzlefish also included awards like Academy Awards, Golden Globes, etc. If we had all that info, it would be simple to create smartshelves for Academy Award winners, all movies that DeNiro has appeared in, all movies directed by Ron Howard or Peter Jackson, etc. It's a much bigger task than simply slurping data from Amazon.com, but ultimately more interesting.

Community - Librarything is really interesting. I think it has the potential to become a great book collector's site. Essentially, the power of the site lies in the community of people to tag books and write reviews and share those with the other members. Guzzlefish was also interesting because you could get recommendations based on comparing your collection of CD's or DVD's with other users shared many of the same items. This goes beyond a desktop app and may be beyond your mission with Delicious Library, but I think these community features are what will drive people to become furiously loyal users of one app/website or another.

Just some things to think about perhaps.

[jpphipps]

I'd like to be able to delete an item from the current collection and the library. In iTunes I can do this by holding down the option key and hitting delete. I wish I could do that in the DL.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

[lars30]

Just started using this fantastic program, here are a couple of initial ideas:

1. Aggregate statistics e.g. total value of library (nice for insurance purposes).

2. Tighter sales integration e.g. just as books can be marked as "out" with a yellow label, they could be marked as "for sale" with a red label. I do this at the moment by having a "borrower" called "Amazon" but this is not a neat as it could be.

Also be nice to enter sale price etc from within the program and just click to sell on Amazon (not sure how feasible this would be).

[foodog]

If you click on the "current value" field, you can pretty much one-click to selling on Amazon.

-Mike

[zerografix]

Those are really good suggestions, I hope the folks at DL take them into consideration

Originally Posted by ktf

Just started using this fantastic program, here are a couple of initial ideas:

1. Aggregate statistics e.g. total value of library (nice for insurance purposes).

2. Tighter sales integration e.g. just as books can be marked as "out" with a yellow label, they could be marked as "for sale" with a red label. I do this at the moment by having a "borrower" called "Amazon" but this is not a neat as it could be.

Also be nice to enter sale price etc from within the program and just click to sell on Amazon (not sure how feasible this would be).

[Baphomet]

Just started using this fantastic program, here are a couple of initial ideas:

1. Aggregate statistics e.g. total value of library (nice for insurance purposes).

This is the #1 reason I wanted to buy DL. I wanted to get a total cost of everything in my library to give to my insurance company. Hopefully this will be an included feature in the future.

[Delicious Monster]

If putting together a list of assets for valuation, insurance, and the like is literally the main reason you use Delicious Library, you should know that, with the help of Excel, you can do this now with very little effort.

Just export your library, using the export command. This will create a huge tab-delimited text file of everything in your library.

Then, when you open this in Excel, you get an import wizard that allows you to narrow the data down further (selecting which columns you want, for example). Slap a few total fields on there, and you've got your report.

[Tick]

Originally Posted by Delicious Monster

If putting together a list of assets for valuation, insurance, and the like is literally the main reason you use Delicious Library, you should know that, with the help of Excel, you can do this now with very little effort.

Just export your library, using the export command. This will create a huge tab-delimited text file of everything in your library.

Then, when you open this in Excel, you get an import wizard that allows you to narrow the data down further (selecting which columns you want, for example). Slap a few total fields on there, and you've got your report.

This assumes you own excel

[Delicious Monster]

Yeah, I get that from time to time, but it gets tiresome to write "whatever spreadsheet program you own, such as Excel, or whatever." After answering all the support email and working on DL2, my hand is but a withered claw.

Anyway, in this case, I only know what Excel does when importing a tab-delimited file. If other people have other spreadsheets and can share what their import wizards are like, I'd like to hear it.

[Martinoo]

What I would like to see is some more internationalisation: I live in the Netherlands and own Dutch books as well. Amazon doesn't have a Dutch store. But ISBN is not just Amazon, it's an international standard. Why can't I scan Dutch books? What's the deal with Amazon? Is there no way to connect to the main ISBN database? The competition can scan with the iSight now, and recognises Dutch books as well.
I would like to see some confirmation that support for Dutch books is coming in 2.0. Or else.

[Delicious Monster]

Just because something is an ISO standard, doesn't mean it's free in any sense of the word. For example, ISBNs are completely controlled by R.R.Bowker in the United States, access to Bowker's database is $20,000 a year, and specifically prohibits sharing the information, as we would be doing.

Now, if you can come up with a database that will resolve Dutch barcodes like Amazon does for the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and Japan, and talk them into giving access to a free webservice in exchange for driving all our Dutch users to their site, let me know. That goes for people in any other country not supported by Amazon as well.

We're not withholding Dutch support for our own amusement.

-Mike

[Martinoo]

[QUOTE=Now, if you can come up with a database that will resolve Dutch barcodes like Amazon does for the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and Japan, and talk them into giving access to a free webservice in exchange for driving all our Dutch users to their site, let me know. We're not withholding Dutch support for our own amusement. [/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply, Mike. Don't take my "or else" too seriously. I never am. And I understand that developing a program such as DL AND listening to complaining users is a hard task.

I know that B**xter connects to Bol.com and/or "Koninklijke Bibliotheek" (Royal Library), which are the largest in the Netherlands. However, there are a few other large ones with online shops as well. For example www.bgn.nl/en/ who have physical high-quality shops.

[Delicious Monster]

Maybe after Delicious Library 2 comes out and we have time and money, Lucas and I should do a world tour and hammer out some details with international sites in all those non-Amazon countries. Now all we have to do is convince Wil.

[weldon]

You could implement the Z39.50 protocol and get access to the collection information of various libraries. A plug-in architecture for data sources would be cool because then people could even write HTML scrapers for various local web sources.

[fideli]

One thing I really like about LibraryThing is that you can sort books by LC Call number. I'm not sure if this is a common way of sorting among people that use book organizers but I really like it since the books end up being organized by subject, as defined by the Library of Congress. It would be handy if DL could connect to libraries, most likely using the aforementioned Z39.50 protocol, and grab call numbers from there.

[Delicious Monster]

Damn, I was just looking for a sorting algorithm for Library of Congress call numbers and ended up having to write my own. I should have called LibraryThing!

-Mike

[zerografix]

Comic Books!

I wish the folks at DM would make a seperate app that can catalog comic books, there isnt a single app out there that has the polish that DL has nor the ease of use.
I don't mind entering all the data by hand, so the need for an online database isn't that necessasry but it couldnt hurt either.

[Delicious Monster]

Well, I mean, if you just want to enter them by hand, you can do that now.

-Mike

[- - e r i k - -]

Yeah, if you added a plug-in architecture, international users could do the work for you and everyone would win

[Delicious Monster]

Maybe.

Delicious Library has an easily hackable XML file, yet there's not that many good utilities out there adding functionality lacking in the actual program. That makes me wonder if anybody would actually write plug-ins, or if it would just end up being something between a red herring and a support nightmare.

-Mike

[Landos Mustache]

SHARING SHARING SHARING!

Right now DL is awful at it. I mean it doesn't even have any export commands over a TXT file. I want it to publish a website with all my titles or even email them.

It would also be cool if people could browse the website and it emails me a list of movies someone wants to borrow.

[cmajma]

*seconds website idea*

[Delicious Monster]

You know, I've been spending all this time implementing a feature whereby Delicious Library will whiten your teeth while you sleep, but not a single person has requested it and I'm starting to feel very foolish.

[typecase]

I'd like to be able to delete a title across bookshelves. For example, if put some of my movies in a collection named 'bedroom', I'd like to be able to delete a title once from both bedroom and my main movie library by holding down the option key or something. iTunes allows this when you hold down option and hit the delete key, the particular playlist or song is deleted from the main iTunes library as well as from the particular playlist

Edit: I see this has been mentioned earlier in this thread by jpphipps

I'd love to be able to get the IMDB user ratings as well. On Amazon nearly everything is four stars, which effectively make it useless. Their (IMDB) credits data would help a great deal too when deciding what movie to watch from my collection. Right now typing in an actor or director's name is hit or miss.

[Landos Mustache]

Originally Posted by typecase

I'd like to be able to delete a title across bookshelves. For example, if put some of my movies in a collection named 'bedroom', I'd like to be able to delete a title once from both bedroom and my main movie library by holding down the option key or something. iTunes allows this when you hold down option and hit the delete key, the particular playlist or song is deleted from the main iTunes library as well as from the particular playlist

Edit: I see this has been mentioned earlier in this thread by jpphipps

I'd love to be able to get the IMDB user ratings as well. On Amazon nearly everything is four stars, which effectively make it useless. Their (IMDB) credits data would help a great deal too when deciding what movie to watch from my collection. Right now typing in an actor or director's name is hit or miss.

IMDB is sorta useless. I'd rather rotten tomatoes.

[monoclast]

Here's a feature request:

How about just being able to add your own custom Genres without having to replace ones from Amazon? I have yet to find a way to change the number of genres assigned to a given item in Delicious Library! If there's a way to do it, it's certainly not clear. And if there isn't a way, there damn well should be!

[Stecchino]

Originally Posted by krove

I want to see Bonjour-shared libraries, so I can see collections of other people on my network.

Just adding my voice to Bonjour sharing. I helped my dad set up his library at home using this app. He's paying my kid brother to input all 6000 volumes on the Mac Mini in the basement and it'd be sweet for all the Macs in the house to see the library.

[Delicious Monster]

If you want to create a carriage return inside a field, you type option-enter. That will enable you to add, say, more genres.

I don't disagree that option-enter is not the most obvious solution, but we didn't make it up -- it's Apple's standard behavior.