Delicious Library 2 Preview
After a long wait, the time has finally come for some real Delicious Library 2 details and screenshots. I can't show everything because some of the features integrate with parts of Leopard which are still under NDA, but there is plenty to dive into.
Delicious Library 2 is a Leopard-only app, so it's not at all shy about jumping into new API. When you delete book from the shelf, it doesn't just disappear, it actually shatters. Selected items glow an eerie glow, and books, DVDs, and video games fly around the shelves as the thumbnail size changes. All courtesy of Core Animation.
Double-clicking on an item summons the Details panel, which contains a summary, reviews, a list of similar items, a rating, and so on. From a technical standpoint, the implementation of this is clever because it looks like a HUD, pops into view like an iPhone dialog, but repositions itself as the view shifts.
One of my favorite minor (though awesome) features is the ability to drag any item off a shelf and into the Finder. This creates a double-clickable item on your desktop — with full artwork — which you can treat like any other file: put it on the Dock, email it, put it on a server, post it on a web site, and so on.
If you double-click this file on another machine, the item will appear in that person's Library. I can have a bunch of DVDs I want to watch sitting in a pile on the desktop, or I can just make a stack (the new Leopard Dock feature) out of them.
But it's actually even a bit fancier. Like any file, they can be viewed in the Finder Cover Flow view, and you can get a box shot of the item with a text summary by activating the QuickLook feature. I'd really, really love to show you screenshots of these because they're gorgeous, but third-party screenshots of Leopard UI are blocked by NDA until Leopard is out.
The barcode scanner is drastically faster at detection now — at least it seems that way to me. It makes the process of scanning items in much more enjoyable. There's also a pretty slick easter-egg-ish-thing (feature?) which is actually quite useful. In fact, for some it might be worth the purchase price just for this one aspect of the program (parents in particular).
The big news in Delicious Library 2, though, are the sharing features. Rather than just hoarding your collection, you can share it with both friends and total strangers. There are quite a few options for doing that, and we'll take a look at that next time.
For the developers in the audience, one of the most interesting aspects of Delicious Library 2 is seeing how far a first-generation Leopard app can go in upgrading the Mac user experience, even with a small team of programmers and artists.
They don't give out those cubes to just anyone, you know.
Delicious Library 2 Preview
Posted Oct 20, 2007 — 50 comments below
Posted Oct 20, 2007 — 50 comments below
Kenneth Ballenegger — Oct 20, 07 4781
Wim Leers — Oct 20, 07 4782
Also, is there the ability to link video files to your Library, allowing you to double-click on a movie to start playing it?
look — Oct 20, 07 4783
Young Joc — Oct 20, 07 4784
You can think of it as iTunes for your real-world media. I wouldn't say that makes it useless. If your house ever burns down, it'd be pretty damned useful.
That said, please point us to what you've been doing with your life for the past several years so we can return the favor by dismissively crapping all over it.
Dusty — Oct 20, 07 4786
Arden — Oct 20, 07 4787
David Chartier — Oct 20, 07 4788
That said, I'm finally getting worried about some of the eye candy that Core Animation is making available. Books that shatter when you delete them? I'm not entirely convinced that is either useful or even "HIG-ish." Books don't shatter in the real world when I lend them to a friend, toss them in a donation bin or set fire to them on the sidewalk. I would have accepted something like tipping forward to fall off the shelf, or even falling left or right and temporarily knocking its neighbors around before disappearing and setting everything back to normal.
But shattering? From Delicious Monster? I'm worried.
Scott Stevenson — Oct 20, 07 4789
The "shattering" chapter of the HIG was cut for length.
lief — Oct 20, 07 4792
For one of the most eloquent responses I've seen or heard in years.
Didn't pick up DL 1 but I like what I see of the new version. Nice work.
jerry — Oct 20, 07 4793
Can you comment on the database speed when loaded with large quantities of data. On of the big foibles, according to most reviews, is the sluggishness when you had a massive library. Has this problem been re/solved?
Also, what will be the update schedule? The first program would go a long while with no updates.
Any answers?
"Look" is a troll. Pay him/it no mind.
Scott Stevenson — Oct 20, 07 4794
Yes. I'm told it's much, much faster now.
look — Oct 20, 07 4797
i got DL way back in 2004. 3 years later 100% of my dvd's are in itunes, so i think it's time for DL to go to the next level since most of the stuff we own is getting digitalized...long story short - in 2004 i owned 500+ CD's! today 0!
@"Young Joc"
i manage to retire by the age of 32. in 5 years i did more than what you will do in your entire lifetime - i guarantee it!
look,
Copenhagen, DK
Dusty — Oct 20, 07 4798
Scott Stevenson — Oct 20, 07 4799
I think you're in the extreme minority in that respect. I'm also guessing your books and video games are not in iTunes.
In any case, I should have made it much more clear that this was not a comprehensive preview of DL2. There are more features that I think people will be quite happy with. After you've used the final product, you may decide that there's more to it than you first thought, or you may decide that it's not for you. Either way, I think a lot of people will like it.
Matt — Oct 21, 07 4800
britt — Oct 21, 07 4801
>> Books don't shatter in the real world when I lend them to a friend, toss them in a donation bin or set fire to them on the sidewalk.
But, they do shatter when you dip them in liquid nitrogen, and then drop them on the floor... and it is supposed to be a cool app, so...
_________________________________________________
Re: DVDs & iTunes... well, what about HD-DVD/Blu-Ray? A modest collection of say, 100 movies, at an average of 40GB per, comes out to about 40TB! Now, I know that hard drive capacity keeps going up and up, but...
Blain — Oct 21, 07 4802
@Matt: What compelling features and abilities would you say makes the $50 Booxter a better deal than the $40 DL?
Unfortunately, I'm not DL's target audience; no webcam, no scanner, no real impulse to inventory. The wife, who does have the lion's share of books, has a PC.
Perhaps when I upgrade, I'll get it. Although I would do a feature request. It's unlikely that anyone but me would do it, but given how I want to sort by subject anyways, automagically finding and sorting by Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress code would rock.
It'd also make me wonder if DL could work for real public libraries, at least small ones.
look — Oct 21, 07 4805
believe what?
also, i see you are bitter as "Young Joc"... what's wrong with you people that you need talk like that??? but than again, you where never strong on culture in the US...
troll;)
Eduo — Oct 21, 07 4807
There are a couple of things I'd like in DL which would make it much more useful to me (although I registered it the day they started taking orders and reported a couple of bugs from the betas).
-Comic book support: Considered as a different media type and using an online service for information (preferrably comicspriceguide.com. Although it's a pay site I don't know of a better place for comic book info and pricing).
-Online sharing: Setting up a service like Anobii or Shelfari free for use for DL users. Offering web views and a degree of social networking based on interests (again, like Shelfari o Anobii).
-Support for other information sources (it's possible, as others have it). Amazon is great and all (and referrals are nice, I'd bet) but ultimately they're not the only source of information out there. Maybe plugins for additional sources would be a nice thing.
-"Finding" of CDs in iTunes: I don't care much for iTunes Music Store support nor do I think DL is actually useful for that (to me DL tracks physical assets) but it could provide a link when a scanned CD is ripped into iTunes.
-Improved contextual information for items: Especially CDs, they don't contain nearly as much information as they could. For some people using DL also means replacing detailed databased currently tracked in Excel or Access (for Switchers). Having the track information would give them a much more useful tool than it currently is (for a DVD or a Game contents may not be as important but for a CD they may be vital).
Matt — Oct 22, 07 4812
Wil Shipley — Oct 22, 07 4817
We don't fetch the LOC automatically yet. Ran out of time.
Eric — Oct 23, 07 4821
Ideas (even though I'm sure you have enough of your own) for version 3:
1. Sharing with friends in social networks (friendster, facebook, etc)
2. Sharing with friends of friends ( If you trust someone, wouldn't you trust who they trust?)
3. Sharing with people you don't know?!?!? Advertise that you have something in a certain location and are willing to share it. ( Craigslist integration? )
4. Being paid to share? Make me into my own personal rental store (paypal integration, etc)
5. Share more than media items : What first comes to my mind is tools. Why do I own a drill that I only use a few times a year? Why not share it with my friends / neighbors? Why not just borrow / rent from them?
6. Maps integration for tracking people / things down.
Where are my friends? Where is my stuff? where can we make a transfer? This would be best for sharing with people you don't know... IE meeting in public spaces for safety.
GREAT WORK, keep it up, oh yeah!
Eric
Sean Patrick O'Brien — Oct 23, 07 4822
Dusty — Oct 24, 07 4829
Scott Stevenson — Oct 24, 07 4833
I think you'll see something for that sort of thing, yes.
Matt — Nov 01, 07 4939
Scott Stevenson — Nov 01, 07 4940
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Delicious Library 2 doesn't support adding wine.
Matt — Nov 01, 07 4941
Bob — Nov 08, 07 5042
This is really viable alternative to products like www.kaleidescape.com
DL is a great, great product by the way!
Scott Stevenson — Nov 09, 07 5045
What, specifically, are you looking for which isn't already in DL1? Just the remote support and playback?
Bob — Nov 12, 07 5055
Specifically;
Remote support (A full screen/kiosk mode for Music and Movies which allows launch to underlying linked media of any kind).
That's it really. The playback could be through front row with the DL area as a plugin? So an option to enter library view which shows the DL icons and informational panel for each icon, and then launches.
If you look at the Kaleidescape site in my last post this gives a feel for how they have implemented. I know that there are a half dozen other companies with varying quality implementations of part of this solution - without the huge amount of other stuff that DL has. Sure it's not core to your initial proposition but this is a great adjunct>...
Not sure how this would be implemented but would make a killer solution.
Some hurdles i guess would be the searching/implementation of an easy method for linking added Movie DB records to media stored on disk. A drag and drop or closest match suggestion would be easy in use.
Well, looking forward to DL2 with or without this...:-D
Cheers
Remi — Nov 12, 07 5057
Scott Stevenson — Nov 12, 07 5058
I've passed the request on to them. We'll see what happens.
@Remi: When will it be out? Waited a long time, and looking forward to it;P
Soon.
Marco — Nov 28, 07 5139
I am waiting for this version for months. I hope we'll dont have to wait too much ;)
A question, if I buy the 1.66 version now, will I have a special price for the 2 ?
Thanks and sorry for my pitiful english...
Missy — Jan 04, 08 5316
dlane — Feb 11, 08 5470
Scott Stevenson — Feb 11, 08 5471
I'm told they've tested with 10,000 item libraries in Delicious Library 2, but it's too much for DL 1.x.
I need LOC catalog numbers and dewey dec information
There are fields for LOC and Dewey Decimal, but Amazon only fills in the dewey field automatically. You can fill in the LOC manually and the sorting will work correctly.
I like the interface but when is 2 going to be available?
Delicious Library 2 should ship around March.
tenjin — Feb 28, 08 5583
Do you know if DL2 will have view filtering features? E.g.:
View only the books by Robert Crais, or only books I haven't read, or books by Robert Crais AND books I haven't read
Cheers
D.
Wil Shipley — Mar 03, 08 5588
-Wil
David G. Paul — Mar 16, 08 5654
Scott Stevenson — Mar 16, 08 5655
Anybody who bought DL1 after December 20 will get a free upgrade to DL2.
Scott Stevenson — Mar 20, 08 5670
Ron Pelletier — Apr 25, 08 5759
I have approx. 475 DVD's cataloged in DL on both my iMac & Powerbook. The iSight barcode reader is amazing, I can load 10 new movies on DL in 1 minute.
I do export a text file to my wife's 2 ipods so if we are out & looking for new movies, it helps to reference the ipod to see if we already own a particular movie.
Rumor is that DL2 would be available for the iphone? If thats true, I can't wait for the new version to come out so that I can integrate my library to the iphone. more times than not my wife usually forgets her ipod. But I always have my phone.
It would also be great if the iphone camera could capture the barcode of a movie title and let me know if I currently own that movie.
Thanks for the great software
RP
Ron — Apr 27, 08 5762
Anand Rajaram — May 24, 08 5907
A few "enhancements" i might suggest for the next generation of the app:
- support for an online "delicious community" - one comprised of DL users who want to swap DVDs or books, who want to sell used DVDs that they no longer need...
- a wish list feature... may be one that keeps track of new releases and forthcoming releases or import an entire list of movies based on user preferences of genre/actors/directors...
- support for multi-dimensional sorting - example: sort movies by actor/year/title...
- store the URL to the movie trailers
- enable multiple tags in series - a movie that has George Clooney and Brad Pitt (and quite a few of them out there) should be tagged as belonging to the "Clooney" series as well as the "Pitt" series.
Hope to see these features in a subsequent release! Good luck with DL 2.0, I will be one of your early customers for sure!
Galley — May 31, 08 5968
David G. Paul — Jul 28, 08 6188
I've found delicious to be really useful for keeping track of my books, dvd's and music - just a shame I can't keep track of my comics easily with it too!
gabe — Oct 03, 08 6435
i add my coffee maker, my vacuum, some harddrives, my iphone, my ipods, but all of those i did manually... lots of stuff i have i didn't buy at amazon... or they don't sell... so it was kind of annoying basically...
then, i was looking at the iTunes stuff and pretty much none of the cover art shows up... and i can't just drag a cover image on to the "CD" on the shelf like i could with all the library items... that blows...
anyway, i know if my house burns down, this could come in handy... but, what exactly did i buy this for? i guess i don't really get it anymore... and the barcode scanner oohs and aahs have gone away...
Scott Stevenson — Oct 03, 08 6453
I don't work for Delicious Monster, but your experience doesn't seem typical to me. You might want to contact support. Certainly your iTunes artwork should show up, and I'm pretty sure I've personally added an iPod to my library using normal drag-and-drop from Amazon.
Jason Parker — Feb 04, 10 7344