I haven’t used it in a while, but when I did I used it sort of as an idea / vision board. For instance, when remodeling the kitchen I created a board where I just pinned a ton of kitchen pictures that had things I liked. Sort of a way to group images together based on themes.
Could you forward your X display in an SSH session so you don’t need a webui? I second the vote for handbrake, it’s a great program!