Desktop/mobile client brainstorm post

[denise]

Many of our Google Summer of Code applicants have mentioned that they'd like to work on desktop or mobile clients. Since the application phase begins today, I thought I'd post an entry for people to mention what features and functions they consider essential in a desktop or mobile client. This will let our GSOC applicants see the thoughts of people who use the site regularly, so they can work those thoughts into their specs as they build their application.

So, this is a post for people to comment with:

* What features/functions do you consider essential in a desktop/mobile client?
* What features or things would you not want a desktop/mobile client to do?
* What are things you've loved and hated in clients you've used previously?

It's okay to answer separately for both desktop and mobile clients, since the two are only very loosely related. The more feedback you can give, the more it will help our GSOC student applicants as they design their application.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I enjoy it when my client alerts me to new entries on my reading page, because that means I don't have to keep refreshing it in case there is new stuff.

I consider being able to set all of the assorted entry properties essential, even if I don't use some of the settings much (like location), as well as the ability to select a community to post to. It's also necessary to be able to edit previously posted entries.

I like it when the client is able to give me a list of my previously-used tags, although sometimes this does not work well as my tags list is large enough to possibly make a client behave unexpectedly.

I really liked Semagic.

I liked the ability to have multiple draft entry windows open at the same time that Log Jam had.

[damned_colonial]

Ooh, yeah, the tag thing is really useful/important.

[yvi]

Your tag list is... impressive.

[damned_colonial]

2,952 ... O_O

[azurelunatic]

It's down from just under 5,000; I had quite the collection when LJ realized there were problems with lots-of-tags and capped them. (A person on my friends list there had the dubious honor of being the example case who proved why capping them was necessary; she had something upwards of 30,000, I believe.)

[green_knight]

LJ has just upped the limit from 1K to 2K, which gives me a reprieve...

Polling the server

[abhishek0]

Yes, this kind of technology is used by many websites, refreshing the page again and again is definitely not fancy and cool now a day. A bit of impatience, huh. With javascript polling mechanisms work fine and in case of desktop client the API will help for the same.

[pne]

I consider being able to set all of the assorted entry properties essential, even if I don't use some of the settings much (like location),

And it should be able to save a set of properties as default -- for example, I like to write my own HTML, so I checked the "don't autoformat" box once and told Semagic to save the settings. So now each time I open Semagic, it comes with that box pre-checked.

Some people might also want to have "Autodetect current music".

A DW client will want to have "Reason for content restriction" field.

[erika]

Personally if they just write a Semagic clone that's actually kept up to date, I would be ecstatic.