LJ Clients
Is it just me, or do all LJ clients suck? Most of them don't even appear to be feature complete. Many of those listed by LJ have since died or are at least being seriously neglected (and it will take some digging to determine this in most cases). Every client I've ever tried has never had anything that made it better than LJ's standard web interface. It was frequently more awkward to use than the simple online form.

The key to a killer LJ client would be to provide some new way of interacting with LJ that LJ itself does not provide or even cannot provide because it's "too heavy" – too resource intensive, requires moving too much information, or simply isn't doable in a web setting using the (un?)holy trinity of XHTML+CSS+Javascript. No-one seems to have implemented anything along these lines.

Too many LJ clients simply attempt to reproduce the online interface. The online interface has already been done. Maybe there are some user interface improvements you could bring to the table, but it's still mostly unnecessary duplication of effort. Not to mention that reimplementing the online interface is not exactly exciting, which might go some way to explain why most LJ client projects shrivel up and die.

Am I mistaken? Have I missed something? Do you use an LJ client that provides some killer feature that would make you hate to go back to LJ's online interface?

Brainstorming is in order. Four a.m. thoughts that I shall not bother to flesh out right now:

• data visualization


• decentralization, offline updates, crosspollinate from dvcs?


• online versus off


• platform issues, audience


• added value