It’s been so long that I don’t even remember exactly how I discovered Delicious Library. But as one of the rare Mac users back then (at least where I lived), I was definitely among the first to know about it—and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew. Even when Mac OS X was still young, and third-party apps had a personal, playful character that made them so much fun—unlike the dull, flat designs we have today—Delicious Library still stood out.

I just did a quick search through my files from the early 2000s, and I found that I’ve used Delicious Library as the example of unique and tasteful software design in so many presentations over the years—both internally and publicly. I love it so much that I see it as the pinnacle of software design.

But it has one problem: no web version. Sure, you can export your collections to HTML, but it’s just not the same. Naturally, I wanted to fix that. In fact, I’ve tried—several times.

Building a Web Version of Delicious Library

2006–2007: Code Helper

My first attempt wasn’t exactly a web version of Delicious Library, but it was heavily inspired by it. Around 2006–2007, I built an internal tool called Code Helper for Alipay. It wasn’t for managing collections but for helping the design team create user interfaces faster. The only connection to Delicious Library was its user interface—I basically kept it the same but replaced the content (books, movies, etc.) with internal documents and code snippets. A shame, I know. But this was where it all started.

Striping out Delicious Library's content

Code Helper's final UI

2008: Book Delicious & Douban Show

In 2008, I came up with a few design concepts for a possible web version of Delicious Library.

One was called Book Delicious, a cloud-based ebook manager.

Book Delicious

The other was Douban Show, which I planned to use for displaying my reading collection on my homepage.

Douban Show on my homepage

Neither of these projects got released. But the first concept eventually evolved into catalog.im in 2011.

2009-2011: Bambook

During these years, I helped design Bambook, the best-selling e-ink reader in China. When I led the design of its Windows companion app, I shamelessly copied Delicious Library’s iconic design. Fortunately for me, Delicious Library wasn’t widely known in China at the time, and people seemed to love what I—well, what Delicious Monster—had created.

Bambook's Welcome screen

Bambook's Windows companion app product requirement documents (unfortunatelly I don't have a screenshot)

2011–2012: catalog.im

In 2012, I quit my BigTech job to work on personal projects. My first was catalog.im. Like Delicious Library, it let you manage your books—but as a web app focused on ebooks. It was much better than Calibre at matching ebook files (e.g., PDF, EPUB) with real books, and it even had full-text search. Unfortunately, it didn’t gain much traction. Still, it was my first serious attempt at building a web version of Delicious Library.

The various library designs, including mobile, for catalog.im

2014–2015: My Reading History and Favorite Music Albums

Even after shutting down catalog.im, I still wanted to share my favorite books and music. So, I hand-made simple web pages and put them on my homepage.

My reading history in 2014

My top 100 albums of all time as of 2014

My reading history in 2015

2020: keihinsen

During the pandemic, I made another design concept called keihinsen. This time, it went beyond books, music, and movies—it could also handle video games and photographs.

keihinsen, the design concept I made during the pandemic

What’s Next?

Maybe it’s finally time to stop making design concepts and start building a real, modern web version of Delicious Library.

Here’s what I’m imagining for this app:

• Web-based: A web app accessible anywhere.
• Collections: Manage books, music, movies, and video games initially, with other types added later.
• Privacy Options: Set your library as public or private.
• Imports: Import data from Goodreads, Delicious Library, Libib, etc.
• Exports: Export your collections (e.g., CSV).
• Sustainable Pricing: A subscription service (I know some people prefer one-time payments, but subscriptions are financially sustainable).
• User-Friendly: Intuitive and easy to use.

I really want to make this happen—it feels like something I’ve been working toward for years. But I’ve also built so many things that no one wanted before, so I’m not sure if this idea is worth pursuing.

What do you think? Would you find something like this useful? I’d love to hear your thoughts.