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What is Jack?
- Jack is a Multi-purpose Utility exclusively for the AmigaOS Workbench
- ‘App-Store’, Image Editor, Calendar, Currency Converter and much more…
Click here for the full-feature list
The Calendar Window which sits snuggily on your Workbench
Knowledge Base (pic. Helge Kvalheim
Application Launcher
The App-Store
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Please consider making a donation; it helps to motivate further development of Jack for AmigaOS.
Jack for AmigaOS 
Funktioniert einwandfrei, sehr gut
Works fine, very good.
Excellent, thank you:-)
thanks again for Jack but most importantly for me is all the work you’ve done for the official (& not official LOL) http://www.amigaos.net site 🙂
cheers,
John
Just got my X1000 a couple of weeks ago and have not been able to use it as much as I would like, due to health reasons, but I was able to download and install “Jack” a few days ago. It is a great looking and useful program. I have heard that it was programmed with Hollywood (and maybe Hollywood Designer), which I have purchased and want to learn. If Jack is an example of what can be done with Hollywood, it makes me want to learn it even more. Is there anything you can share about Jack and how it was created?
Thanks for the work you have done and continue to do with your programming skills. Having useful software like Jack available for AmigaOS4.1.x is very important in attracting new users to our tiny group of OS4.x users.
Hi amigadave,
I do own a copy of both applications, the Designer’s primary use is for creating powerful presentations and interactive kiosk-style applications. The next update of Designer (whenever that will be) should prove just as popular when Airsoft Softwair come around to introducing the newer features of the core Hollywood language such as Network and Video playback support.
As for how Jack was created, I use Codebench as my primarily IDE and AISSViewer so I can easily utilise icons for toolbars and buttons. Hollywood 5 introduced documentation in HTML format which makes reading and learning somewhat swifter in comparison to AmigaGuide; which is also included in the package.
On OS4Depot I uploaded sometime ago a library of common functions that Jack makes use of which anyone is free to download- talking of which it probably needs updating.
If you want to get started in coding with Hollywood you just need a basic understanding of programming principles, however the documentation is well written and goes through some of these principles- in addition there are numerous examples in the package to help with the learning curve.
The biggest obstacle in realising Jack is that Hollywood has a very limited GUI Toolkit- to be more accurate its pretty none-existent. So all toolbars, buttons, option boxes and forms had to be written from scratch- this toolkit is contained in the archive on OS4Depot for anyone to use. However its never going to be as good as the real thing.
Hope that helps!
Really like using Jack but is there anyway to delay jack starting up ?. At the moment ive got it in the WBstartup list but its trying to start before my Sam460 has established an internet connection and so wont startup.
I can click on the dock after workbench has started and it will load up fine.
It used to start up ok before version 3 if that helps.
Hi Paul,
If you look at the Tooltypes you will find DELAY=3, this means Jack will wait 3 seconds before checking for a connection. Changing this should work for you.
Just tried altering the DELAY setting but made no difference. I can put the setting at 30 but the notification that JACK cant find an internet connection pops up at the same time (within 2 seconds of the workbench appearing).
I’ve tried deleting my JACK installation and reinstalling a fresh copy but the same thing happens.
Its not a massive problem, I just click the JACK dock icon after this appears and JACK opens up.
Perhaps i can find here a little help!
I have a “new” sam440ep with 512 mb ram and Radeon M9 Graphics card bought from ebay. Yesterday with Jack everything was fine. But since today i can start it from amidock but i cannot get any functions with the mouse (app store etc.). Keyboard shortcuts work fine except the appstore: “Table field 30 was not initialized! File: appstore.hws (current line 488 -in function: getos4depot_recentlist)”.
Yesterday i had problems with the AMC Demo installed via Jack. I asked the author for help and reinstalled the demo version. Perhaps i can do something with that?
I hope anyone can help me! And sorry for my english!
Hi Siegfried,
Yes, I too spotted the Table field 30 error yesterday, its since been fixed this end. It should go away by itself in the next few days, its because there are more than 30 items in the Recent List- first time this has happened since Jack’s release.
Ok Paul, I am going to have to look into this one.
hello
Wonder Full program. Have tried to register before downloading and receive an email that says “Thanks for joining Jack’s App Store Interface.
Your password is: ”
When I try to login I get the message wrong password.
When I use the forgotten password feature I get an email that says “A paswword reminder er Requested from the Jack application for your account.
Your password is: ”
Therefore, it is impossible to log in to the app store.
Peter
Hi, thanks for reporting this. It’ll be fixed over the easter weekend hopefully, in the meantime I have disabled the form. Users can download the archive from OS4Depot and join the App-Store that way in the meantime. Sorry for any inconvinence caused.
looking really great! finally something useful for Amiga 🙂
Hi I tried to install the WarpOS version.
But I get a error when I install it.
I have tried two ways to unzip it!
Hi Dennis, the Classic and WarpOS versions are supplied untested as I don’t have the necessary hardware to test them on. Are you trying to say that you unzipped the archive okay – but that the installation script didn’t work? What error messages do you see (if any)?
Hi, after playing a video through jack if I then try and play some music though Tunenet or AmigaAmp I get a ‘Could not open the requested Audio Mode (AHI)’ error.
If I then shutdown Jack I can play music again.
Oh and its on Amiga OS4 update 5.
Thanks Paul for your feedback, I’ll see if there is anything I can do to address it.
It would be nice if you could expand jack with a twitter client. we really need that on the Amiga
Funny that, I am currently adding a Tweet button into the App-Store. However, creating a twitter client requires someone to study and implement OAuth.
Hello Richard,
wanted to try Jack, so downloaded the latest version available at archives.aros-exec.org. After the splash screen, the installer asks for the installation path and then seems to copy some files and displays the endsplash image. But no drawer is created in the selected path.
I noticed that in the drawer where the installer is, a new one was created during installation, named “$jack_destination”. So I renamed it to Jack and moved it to Work:Extras.
Is that all that is needed? Should there be assigns to make?
Hi Enrique,
Yes this is the only issue with the AROS version, an error in the installation script. No-one wants to help me finding a solution to it.
No Assigns are required.
Richard
Thanks Richard,
if you need testing I would be glad to help. I have 2 AROS VMs (Icaros and AspireOS) and 1 PC (Icaros).
Hello again,
I was able use successfully the install script for Jack under AROS with a little modification. Just tell me where I can send it to you if you want it.
Regards,
Enrique
great…now something useful for Amiga
Can you create a directly startable directory of Jack!?
And remove the OpenURL-Library, because it is included in MorphOS already.
Thank you for your feedback.
I am getting close to a release now, I’ve made the OpenURL-library change as requested. Does ‘OpenUrl’ already exist in C: as well under MorphOS?
Yes, in C: it is also present already.
Thank you, removed as well.
Hi Richard, like the new Jack but when I click on make a donation and then click on make a donation on the OWB page that has opened up it thinks im the seller. My email address is in the sellers payment info not yours. Still managed to donate though through this site.
Hi Richard,
Just installed Jack for the first time and when launching it is asking to insert ADH0:. I do an assign to DH0: to get around the problem but thought you’d like to know that this device (ADH0:) is directly referred to (rather than SYS: for example).
Try new version tomorrow when its available via AmiUpdate and let me know if there is any difference.
Will Do. Another problem I faced was creating an account and adding a password that didn’t meet the required number of characters etc. It doesn’t say there is anything wrong while creating it, but when attempting to login after you have created the account, it said the specs weren’t met. There was no way to reset the password and trying to do a “Forgot password” didn’t work either. I had to create a new account with a different email to work around the problem.
Any idea why I get this look of Jack!?
Make sure 3D effects is turned ON in GUI/Prefs this will make the areas become transparent.
Thanks! “Problem” fixed (it did the trick). I have used my Workbench (on my Sam460ex) “without” 3D till now…
Yes on SAM 460exs it’s off by default. Enjoy your rounded Workbench Windows as well.