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How To Install Smackbook On A Macbook Pro
I suppose that just about everyone has seen this video by now. It’s a clever way to take advantage of multiple desktops and the motion sensor in many of the new Mac laptops. I saw it a couple weeks ago, tried to install it and failed because it was too complex for me. But, I revisited the original site again today and saw that there were a ton of new comments. After a while of reading here and following links there, I was finally able to download Smackbook, install and use it on my MacBook Pro. I thought I’d take the time to write it as simple as possible for the next guy that comes along and tries to do it. If there are steps that seem too simple, remember that there are others that may need it explained.
Obviously, much credit goes to the commenters on the original post.
Here are the steps:
- Download the patched DesktopManager here. (This was originally supplied by simplylinux.org, but put a copy on our server in case theirs goes down.)
- Download Smackbook’s zip folder of patches from the original site (direct link)
- Download amstracker from this page.
There, now you have everything downloaded that you’ll need. On your desktop, you should have a folder called “smackbook“, a Desktop Manager application, and a gray square called AMSTracker. Now that you have the parts, let’s get it activated.
- Put “AMSTracker” into the “smackbook” folder.
- Start up “Desktop Manager” by double clicking on it.
- Start the application called “Terminal”. use Spotlight to find it or look in your Utilities Folder, which will be in your Applications folder.
- When started, the bottom line will end with a $ and a grey box. Right before the $ is your user name. The gray box is where your typing will go. From here type “cd /Users/username/Desktop/smackbook”. Don’t put in the quotation marks and be sure to write your actual username instead of the word “username”
- Press Return. You should now see “~/Desktop/smackbook username$” and a gray box.
- Now, where the gray box is you should type “perl smack.pl” without the quotation marks.
- Press Return and you will see “AMS hardware present and initialized”
That’s it. Tap the bottom right hand corner of your screen. Start off soft and get a little harder each time so you know how hard to hit it. If you are giving it a good tap and it’s not working, don’t start pounding it. Go thru the steps again and see if you missed anything. You can write questions in these comments if you’d like. I’ll try to answer the ones that I can.
Now, your goal is to show off to your friends, but not so much that they want to tap your computer every time they walk by and keep you from working.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Instead of
“cd /Users/username/Desktop/smackbookâ€
just use
“cd ~/Desktop/smackbookâ€
June 4th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Chris, that’s a good suggestion. I wanted to write the tutorial as broken down as possible so that even the most beginner would know what they are doing.
Thanks for the comment.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Thanks! worked great!
June 6th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
anyone else not having any luck with Desktop Manager actually running? It launches and disappears instantly for me.
June 9th, 2006 at 2:12 am
[...] Entdeckt in einem Artikel bei freemacblog.com: Umschalten des Desktops mit Hilfe des Sudden Motion Sensors des MacBook. [...]
June 10th, 2006 at 11:21 am
umm does this work for iBook G4’s cause i kinda hoped it would and so far no result…… if u know of anyway to get this to work for iBook G4’s please email me
June 10th, 2006 at 11:44 am
[...] Buona fortuna! No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTMLallowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> [...]
June 10th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Allan- This wouldn’t work on an iBook because it’s dependant on the motion sensor hard drive…which I don’t think that iBooks have.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
hey i got this working great, but now i can’t seem to uninstall it, can you help?
June 16th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
The newest iBooks have the sudden motion sensor. Not sure if that means they’re supported though.
June 16th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
The newest iBooks have the sudden motion sensor. And they’re supported.
June 16th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
When I try to open Desktop Manager I get an error that says: “You can not open the application because it is not supported on this architecture” I am running a PB G4.
June 18th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
I have the same problem as Ryan above.
“You can not open the application because it is not supported on this architectureâ€
June 18th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I wrote his up specifically for the MacBook Pro. The Desktop Manager app I link to is the one that is comiled for Intel machines.
If you find the other patched one on the Smackbook site, the rest o the steps would apply the same.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Thats nice, it works on the new macbook not the pro version the macbook! oleeee, like ialertu.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
George, this works on the Macbook and the MacBook Pro.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:02 am
[...] Some people have said that the instructions aren’t very clear so there are other sites that have written up more step-by-step instructions that should be easier to follow. I don’t have a Macbook to test this out on but there are a lot of people out there that have successfully gotten it installed. [...]
June 28th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
somehow. i type a lot of time. it still not work on my 13″ 2.0ghz macbook
anyone can help?
June 28th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
hi all, thx for this , but anyway it seems that the patch doesnt work, when i start the patched desktopManager it starts and closes after a secound again. i found and insatlled the universal binary desktopmanager 0.6, this app works great, but not with the smack.
today i insatlled 104.7, this was BEFORE i tried the smack thing, may this be the problem? i would love to run this app, macbookpro, thx for help
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:51 am
Looks like it would be awesome, after “perl smack.pl” nothing happens though. how else would I get it to reconize the amstracker. I think I have it right, smackbook folder is on my desktop, amstracker is inside of it desktop manager is on…
-c
July 2nd, 2006 at 2:15 am
OKay, its working… I just cant get my terminal to close and save this operation, it doesn’t stay working when I close (it “terminates”)
please help
-c
July 7th, 2006 at 7:15 am
hey, for some reason terminal will not recognize the fact that i have smackbook folder on my desktop. it tells me ‘no such file or directory’. im not making any typographical errors and this occurs when using my username and when i just use the ~/ approach aswell. any thoughts?
July 10th, 2006 at 2:48 am
paul wrote:
OKay, its working… I just cant get my terminal to close and save this operation, it doesn’t stay working when I close (it “terminatesâ€)
please help
-c
To stop smackbook from running just hit control-c and it will kill the process and you’ll get your cursor back in Terminal. In order to keep using smackbook using this method you will need to keep the terminal window open and as long as the last line in the Terminal reads “AMS hardware present and initialized” it will continue to work.
Hope this clears that up.
July 10th, 2006 at 2:50 am
hey, for some reason terminal will not recognize the fact that i have smackbook folder on my desktop.
There’s a shortcut for this, after you type cd then just drag the smackbook folder from your desktop into the terminal window and it will enter the path for you.
July 31st, 2006 at 5:53 pm
THANKS SO MUCH!!!!
these were by far the easiest instructions to follow and everything is working perfectly. thanks for sorting everything out and writing it our for all of us nontechnical folks to use!!!
August 4th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Works Perfectly!!! - But does anyone know how to get the NEVERBALL GAME to work.
August 4th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Shaundel, for me it was as easy as starting the app up.
( http://freemacware.com/neverball for those of you who don’t know what game it is)
August 15th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
i understand how to install everything and do all of your steps but after i get that the AMS hardware present and installed, then it wont work. Ive tried redoing the steps a couple of times and it just wont work. Im using a newer ibook g4 that has the motion sensor. Any tips or ideas?
August 15th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Brad, my first guess would be sure to get a copy of DesktopManager that is ready for a PPC machine. The one I link to is the Intel version.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
do you have to type cd/ blahb lah and perl smack.pl everytime you wanna use Smackbook? because as soon as I close Terminal, it stops working.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I have the new macbook, have downloaded everything stated above (smackbook, ams tracker and desktop manager), have put ams tracker in smackbook folder, started up desktop manager and terminal, entered in the cd/users/username/desktop/smackbook (replacing username with ACTUAL username), it reads ~/desktop/smackbook and after i put perl smack.pl it still reads ~/desktop/smackbook username$. any suggestions??
August 24th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
VirtueDesktop has ’smackbook’ functionality built-in
August 24th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
how hard do you have to “smack” your computer? cause i’ve hit it hard enough and i’m not hitting it any harder cause i don’t think it should be THAT difficult to switch screens. is anybody else having difficulty with having to hit their macbook too hard? or is it just me
August 24th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Morgan, it should be jut a slight tap. If it’s not working then either it’s not running right…or your motion sensor is broken.
August 25th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Hey what’s up everyone… I just got my new Mac Book Pro few days ago, it’s simply amazing… It’s my first mac. but anyway, I did everything the steps told to do… And actually deleted everything after it didn’t work, and once again, tried it again…
I’ve got everything until I hit the “perl smack.pl” part, I enter that, and I don’t see the AMS Initialized thing… So I’m not quite sure what to do… But I would love for someone to either email me, or reply to this post with some help, or reasons why this is not working for me…
And also, if I can’t get this to install and run, is there anyway I can get it completely removed from my computer? I don’t want it to effect anything, any other programs… Thanks, appreciate it.
August 26th, 2006 at 1:51 am
It works for me, it’s just not sensitive enough. I have to literally lift the laptop up and move it around to make it switch desktops.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:01 am
It works splendid on my MacBook. One problem though: How do I keep the perl script running after I’ve closed the Terminal?
Smackbook is one cool thing to impress your friends with but not with that ugly Terminal window hanging in the background…
September 11th, 2006 at 7:10 am
when i type in the cd /Users/username/Desktop/smackbook and hit enter it comes up with: No such file or directory
i am putting my user name in, any ideas why this doesnt work?
September 13th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
I have the same problem, once i get to the “Perl smack.pl” part, it doesnt do anything… can anyone help??? please???
September 14th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I have not yet installed the smackbook functionality, mostly because I’m using 0.6 of desktop manager.
I’m using 0.6 because upgrading to 10.4.7 broke 0.5.3 of desktop manager.
However, for everyone that wants to close the terminal app after doing the “perl smack.pl”, this is what I would do. I use this method whenever I want to start any GUI application from the command line and then be able to close the terminal.
Simply add a space and a & after smack.pl
So you would type this:
perl smack.pl &
after hitting enter, and confirming you get the line that says its working, you should be able to type “exit” to close the terminal window, or you could just click the x in the corner as usual for any window.
On the off-chance that the smacking functionality does stop when you close the terminal (which would be because its a perl program that’s running the smacking functionality), in this case, add “nohup” to the start of the line. so you would end up with this:
nohup perl smack.pl &
You should then see this: sending output to nohup.out
The confirmation line that smack has initialized will not appear on your screen. The confirmation line will be stored in the file named “nohup.out”
To view the confirmation line, type this:
cat nohup.out
You would now be able to type exit to close the terminal, or click the x in the corner as usual.
wexx
September 19th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
i have tried just about everything website that provides the information on how to install this program but none of them seem to work on my macbook. can someone help?
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:48 pm
How do I set perl smack.pl to run automaticly at startup?
by the way, nice instructions Brian… and also to you wexx
September 30th, 2006 at 10:42 am
hi..my sis accidentally deleted the “terminal” shortcut in the utilities folder, any idea how i can restore it? she already ‘emptied’ the “trash bin”
appreciate your help..thanks!
October 7th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Hi all,
I just got my smackbook working and thought i’d help others! ok. my main problems when i tried to set it up..
no such file or directory error:
Put a space in between cd and /user/username/desktop/smackbook
Perl smack.pl error:
you have to put the actual AMS application in your smackbook folder, so open up AMSTracker 0.34 and move the AMSTracker application to the smackbook folder.
Hope this helps!
October 22nd, 2006 at 5:04 am
I’ve a problem! When i arrive at : 7. :# Press Return and you will see “AMS hardware present and initialized” i don’t see anything! My command line return to ~/Desktop/smackbook username$ whitout do anything!!! I’ve a macbook pro!
Please help me!
Thank u
|N.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I have a MacBook and im having trouble installing this… WHen im done i get the “AMS hardware present and initialized”, but still nothing happends when i slap it. I’ve gone through the guide several times and checked if i missed something, and I havent.. Does this have anything to do with im not being administrator on my MacBook? Help me out here please
October 27th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
I tried doing the cd/Users/matt/Desktop/smackbook and it says that no file or directory can be found. What could be going wrong? I downloaded everything that was required.
October 28th, 2006 at 6:08 am
I’ve got the new(er) iBook G4 that comes with motion sensors, i’ve installed everything including the new desktop manager that works and went through the steps which were really simple - but it didn’t work. So i did it again and now instead of AMS hardware present and initialized I get ” “Simulating” AMS hardware in software”.
Where did I go wrong?
October 28th, 2006 at 6:31 am
Matt, be sure to have a space after cd
October 28th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I have a new MacBook Pro, but when I entered the command in the terminal, I didn’t get the expected reply. I have the newest generation of MacBook Pro 15″ (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo CPU model), so I should be able to use this app. I followed your instructions to the letter but still no joy
October 29th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Anyone found a soloution to make smackbook work withouth having Terminal open?
October 29th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Never mind, vexx gave me the answer when i read:)
November 1st, 2006 at 6:49 am
First of all what a wonderful thing this is!
Right, i wondered where and in what direction do people find the best way to tap their Macs?
Mine works when i’m carrying it around but not so well when its on my lap or a desk. Any suggestions would be useful for me as well as others i’m sure
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Excellent instructions! Thanks to both Brian and Wexx!
I’ve found that I can do the same without having to delve into the terminal using a neat little program called Virtue Desktops (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16530).
How can I go about undoing what I’ve done in the terminal if I added the ” &” at the end of “perl smack.pl” ?
November 14th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
hey my question is when i downlod everything and i start to acctivate it i go to terminal and i put cd/Users/my username/Desktop/smackbook
but insted of letting me go to the next step it’s say no such file or directory so can u help me please so i can fix it
December 14th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Farid, there is a space after cd,, and also everything worked but when i typed in perl smack.pl, the messege did not come up and it does not work
December 17th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Hi, I’ve followed all of these instructions but it still refuses to work. any suggestions? i’ve run thru all of the instructions making sure it was done word for word
plz help!!
December 17th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Hi. First I wanted to thank you for posting instructions. I did everything exactly how its said. I do all the steps and then when I get to typing “perl smack.pl” nothing happens. I tried typing it with and without the space and & sign. I tried the steps many different times and one time it said “done” but nothing about the AMS being installed. I am running a MacBook black version if that helps. Please post if anyone has a solution. Thank you.
December 19th, 2006 at 12:28 am
hey i just got my macbook(white) today and i finally got this smackbook to work.. first of all u need to open the ams folder and drag ams icon into the smackbook folder.. then open desktop manager.. after u open terminal… type “cd” (without quotes and a space after cd) and drag the smack folder on to the terminal and it will filll in the rest of the smackbook folder location.. press return then after that type in perl smack.pl (reemmber the space after perl and a space after pl) and it should work.. took me a while to figure all of it out becacuse the instructions werent so clear to me.. i hope that helps!
December 25th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Just wondering, i got a new mac yesterday and i don’t want to ruin it so if i don’t like it, can i uninstall it?
January 24th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Nancy & any others-
I have gotten to the part where I type in perl smack.pl and nothing happens. It repeats the previous response. I have tried typing it many different ways so I am assuming it has something to do with the AMS icon not being in the smackbook folder. I have dragged the white AMS icon into the smackbook folder several times and nothing works?
Please help ! This is getting pretty frustrating. I have a MacBook Pro so it should work.
Thank you !
February 8th, 2007 at 12:51 am
got a question, im getting my macbook (black) in two days!! very excieted and was wondering how do i unistall this program and make it switch between differnet desktops is it with virtue desktops?
February 24th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
it works perfectly for me (macbook) but the thing is that if i shut down terminal the applications close, and to open smackbook again i have to type everything in again.. is this normal?
March 8th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I have gotten everything done except the last part when you have to type “perl smack.pl” and when I type it it just displays the same thing and doesn’t say AMS has started. What do I do?
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I type cd then drag the folder to the terminal window and press enter, it still says no such file or directory Someone should write directions even simpler than this…hehe
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Ok i finally got it working but is there a way to make it stay even when you restart? i really want it to be on like all the time..
April 10th, 2007 at 12:43 am
I have gotten everything done except the last part when you have to type “perl smack.pl” and when I type it it just displays the same thing and doesn’t say AMS has started. What do I do?
April 20th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
How do I change the sensitivity?
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Cody (68) - to change the sensitivity go to the smackbook folder and open the smack.pl file. the should be a line which says
if(abs($x) > 30 && $stable > 30) {
at the first 30 change it to about 12 or less.you can toggle that number for sensitivity.
also a question: when i tap my macbook pro the screen only switches to the right. if i tap the left side of my computer it goes right and if i tap the right ide it goes right. i want it to be able to go both ways.
plz help its really bugging me.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
well wat about when u restart? i mena when restart ull ha to do the same thing over and over again… (kinda annoyin) and how on earth can i keep the terminal to keep the command up without “killing the pocess”?
April 26th, 2007 at 7:54 am
thank you for this walk threw it worked first time i love it
thanks
this was the first REAL thing i have ever done on a mac and i only got a macbook because i didn’t want vista …
thanks again
May 19th, 2007 at 5:57 am
It can work on the last iBooks. They have the motion sensor…
June 8th, 2007 at 7:01 am
hiya, i’ve been following all the different instructions, but still cant get it to work.. i’ve got a white macbook… it says its all fine, but when i hit the screen it just doesn’t work…
any suggestions?
thanks,
arthur
July 8th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
little bit new to getting a mac laptop but as soon as i heard about this i fell in love. everything goes well for the code with me except the last line. after i enter perl smack.pl nothing happens, it just goes back to the screen and says
DG-2:~ don$ cd /Users/ don/Desktop/smackbook
DG-2:/Users don$ cd /Users/don/Desktop/smackbook
DG-2:~/Desktop/smackbook don$ perl smack.pl
DG-2:~/Desktop/smackbook don$
July 8th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
got it figured out!
July 11th, 2007 at 6:28 am
i typed it with username, butt now i can’t open terminal again…. HELP!!
July 12th, 2007 at 12:52 am
will this work on a macbook intel core
i tried but it didnt work
July 18th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
everything seems to work okay until i have to enter the “perl smack.pl” into the Terminal. It doesn’t seem to be able to open this command… please email me with a response if you can
July 24th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I tried everything it says that smackbook is a directory
July 27th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
does it still work for 2007 macbook/macbook pro?
July 31st, 2007 at 8:10 am
i cant get it to work on my macbook pro. it says theres no such directory
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:31 pm
hey i couldn’t get it to stay working a soon as i cllase Terminal it stops working
August 6th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Hi, I am not the most tech savvy guy in the world and I’m sure this is a dumb question but I have a HP Pavillion dv6000 and was wondering if the same steps could be used to install the smack option on my laptop. I have all of the programs but I just can’t figure out how to open up the terminal window.
Any help would be excellent.
~Thank you
August 11th, 2007 at 5:20 am
Oh, yes… Thank you very mutch, it’s worked!
August 15th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Press Return. You should now see “~/Desktop/smackbook username$” and a gray box.
I dont understand where I should press return?
August 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I have been looking everywhere for simple instructions that just work. So Thank-You! It work great !
September 12th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I will retry again but it not working when i try to smack it. everything else is good
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
you dont have to smack it just tilt it like left or right and it changes dont smack it, tilt it
tiltbook
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
DONT SMACK IT…. TILT IT!!!
but anyone know how to run the perl script at start up?
October 8th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I followed the instructions on this page exactly.
after i type in peal smack.pl
i get (”Simulating” AMS hardware in software)
instead of (AMS hardware present and initialized)
does anyone know what i might be doin wrong?
Thanks very much!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:28 am
how do i get desktop manager to stop working i am using virtue desktops now which is great (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16530) and now it says that desktop manager is still in use and won’t let me delete it….any help?
October 15th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
follow comment 59 it works on new mack books also drad the whole smackbook folder and put all the spaces in even after .pl
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 am
hey there, im following all the steps and its not working, i have leopard this is what i rite down…
Last login: Wed Jan 23 12:24:50 on ttys000
Zafs-Apple-MacBook-Pro-11319670:~ zahirhussain$ cd/Users/zahirhussain/Desktop/smackbook
-bash: cd/Users/zahirhussain/Desktop/smackbook: No such file or directory
Zafs-Apple-MacBook-Pro-11319670:~ zahirhussain$
any help?
the smackbook and ams tracker is on desktop too…
please help
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The link for amstracker dont work!!!!!!
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
ok now work
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Work!!!! but if i close terminal the processes in execution are closed
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
zaf: go to this site and do as the video tell you to do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbuEbGGamU&feature=related
Works with my macbook 13 2.0GhZ with leopard….
March 13th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
when i try put he code in the terminal this line comes up
“-bash: cd/Users/brianallen/Desktop/smackbook: No such file or directory”
Any idea what i’m doing wrong
March 15th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Works on normal MacBooks too!
March 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am
if you are running leopard you don’t need desktop manager its basically just spaces for tiger.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Brian, and anyone else having this problem, I had it too. Make sure that there is a SPACE in between “cd” and whatever else you have to type after that.
Btw, you can also type “cd”, hit space, and then drag the folder with AMSTracker right into the terminal. Only after making sure there was a space after “cd” did it work for me. There is a video on You Tube of someone doing it, and it really helped me out.
It… is … so …COOL…. stick with it! and show all of those b*tch- as* PC users why you buy a Mac!
April 7th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Is there a way to just turn this off when you’re on the train or in a car?
August 19th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I have followed you instructions and had ever result that you predicted but, there are no switching desktops when i tap my computer. What else should i do?
This is actually my first new computer. it is a Macbook. i would rather not smack it too hard only to find out it does not work.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:08 am
I do everything. Then it say AMS hardware present and initialized. I try to smack, OK it works. After it I closed Terminal, smackbook not work.
So If I want to use it, every time am I do same steps to open it??? (open terminal, write cd blank take smackbook folder there press enter and write perl smack.pl press enter…???)
August 27th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I did everything to my knowledge correctly on my macbook (white) purchased recently and runs on leopard. It says AMS hardware present and initialized but nothing happens when i smack the computer. Any suggestions?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
hey guys, i have tried this several times and i just dont think im putting the AMS tracker in my smackbook zipped folder correctly.. do i need to unzip this folder or just open it using my archive utiliy??? thank you
September 5th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hey ya’ll!
I finally made it. I extracted the AMSTracker file from the AMSTracker-0.34.dmg file into the smackbook folder and did run the script in the terminal.
Great fun!
September 14th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
is there any way to like, save it 2 ur desktop, so u wont have to type i all those things in terminal?
September 26th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
alright, it works for me, i can tap the sides and it fades to a diffrent spaces screen. but 2 questions, how do i change the effects of it. And 2 can i change the sensitivity, because i have to tap hard enoulgh for the screen to shake a bit, and i dont think thats good for the comp…
thanks
September 30th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
hii, i have a problem i think with the name.. the direction…
users/username… it says that : cd/users and all that is not a valid comand… what happens? or what should i write!??
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
um when i press return
it says no such folder or whatever…
October 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
hi,
i already use my terminal to get into a uni gateway.
so wot u have stated above does not appear.
mm, im not sure wot to do.
help?
October 30th, 2008 at 4:10 am
It’s GREAT!!!! Thanks a lot!!! The only problem is that when I’m in the plane it changes alone becasue of the movement!!
November 6th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I love this thanks!
but I like using spaces rather than desktop manager so i’ve added some to the smack.pl, its sloppy but it works.
there is no need for the desktop manager path or installation:
use strict;
my $stable;
my $key = 1;
#number of spaces set up
my $spaces = 4;
open F,”./AMSTracker -s -u0.01 |”;
while() {
my @a = /(-?\d+)/g;
print, next if @a != 3;
# we get a signed short written as two unsigned bytes
$a[0] += 256 if $a[0] < 0;
my $x = $a[1]*256 + $a[0];
if(abs($x) 30 && $stable > 30) {
$stable = 0;
my $foo = $x < 0 ? “right” : “left”;
print $foo;
if($foo == “right”){
$key = $key == $spaces ? 1: $key+1;
}else{
$key = $key == 1 ? $spaces: $key-1;
}
my @arg = (”osascript -e ‘tell application \”System Events\” to keystroke \”$key\” using control down’
“);
system(@arg);
}
}
November 13th, 2008 at 4:04 am
hey i typed “perl smack.pl &” , which allows it to work on startup without typing all that in terminal again, and it works. but how do i switch it off? thanks in advance for the help!
November 27th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I just downloaded it, the instructions were great. I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out if it had not been for the easy to understand way you laid it out. Thanks!
December 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I got to the “perl smack.pl” part, put terminal says there’s no such directory. Any suggestions?
December 7th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Great program and I love it except for two things.
1). Running this program cuts ones battery life down by ~ 1/2
2). Causes the laptop to heat up much hotter than normal operating temperatures
Any way this can be changed/fixed?
Laptop: Brand new 2.4 GHz MacBook (unibody - running leopard obviously)
December 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hey there. I’ve been trying to make this work but i think i am doing something wrong…i come up to the point where i type “nohup perl smack.pl &”…i press the return button and i get this… 1784
Macintosh:~ PapaG$ appending output to nohup.out
what do i have to do next..Thanking you in advance..
George
December 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
is it work when im quit of term terminal?
December 30th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
-bash: cd/Users/”my username”/Desktop/smackbook: No such file or directory
why is this?
and instead of “my username” its my actual username. i didnt want it to get onto the internet
please help!
thanks
December 31st, 2008 at 6:25 pm
yeah, i’ve encountered an identical problem as laura…despite having followed the instructions dilligently..
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
you need to put a space between the cd and the /Users/”my username”/Desktop/smackbook
For Example you would write:
cd /Users/”my username”/Desktop/smackbook
I have fixed this problem for many people and many of them forgot to even put the smackbook folder on the desktop. make sure you have done this.
January 4th, 2009 at 3:25 am
Now I do get past that thing, but what appears is: ~/smackbook “username”$
and upon entering perl smack.pl, no effect, same thing apears again…..and yes, the smackbook folder IS on desktop…
January 4th, 2009 at 4:21 am
Thank you very much Wexx (#40) and Lilian (#44)!!
January 9th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I got it working great on my MacBook Pro, but if I log out, how will I be able to keep Smackbook? Do I have to re-enter everything?
January 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
OK I DID WHAT WEXXXXX SAID AND IT WORKED, BUT HOW DO I TURN IT OFF! IT GETS ANNOYING SOMETIMES, SO HOW DO I STOP IT NOW????
January 16th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
for anyone who is fighting with the installing, you have to open first the amstracker(installer) and then copy the AMStracker (the file that is in the amstracker installer) in to the smackbook folder and then just keep going with the steps everybody talks about for the installing
January 16th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I have been trying all night to turn the script into an application so I can find it easily with Spotlight. It does tend to hammer on the CPU at times, rather pull it up for fun from time to time.
I tried calling the perl script via applescript, then tried automator, then Platypus. Nothing works. I just want an app I can put in Applications, feels impossible, you would think it would be simple to call a perl script from the Script Editor, sheesh. Cool app, hope I can figure this out.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Ya I got through all the steps and everything, the only problem is that I have changed the hotkeys in desktop manager to Command + because I just used that anyways, what are the default keys it has to be set to to work, as it seems mine doesnt want to.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:39 am
I know people have been fighting to make this an automated application. Here’s my simple applescript solution, obviously locations of files will change depending on where you put the smackbook folder. I’ve left this the way it would look if you kept it on the desktop.
I’m also assuming you’re using OSX 10.5. Please don’t ask me for help with other OS’s or anything other than a Macbook Pro, since I know absolutely nothing about perl or applescript, I just figured this out after searching around on Google for half an hour. If it doesn’t work for you, I’d suggest you try the same!
1. Move “Desktop Manager” into your Applications folder.
2. Open Script Editor (in the Applescript folder in your Applications).
3. Enter the following into the script window:
tell application “Desktop Manager” to run
set smackbook_script to “cd /Users/yourUserName/Desktop/smackbook; perl smack.pl”
tell application “Terminal”
do script smackbook_script
end tell
tell application “System Events”
set visible of process “Terminal” to false
end tell
4. Save the script as an Application (under File Format) and tick off the “Run Only” box.
That should do it! Try double clicking on the new application icon, you should see a flash of the Terminal window as it starts and then it will be a hidden application in your Dock. Good luck!
yetiboy
January 31st, 2009 at 11:41 am
Whoops, sorry, forgot step 3.5:
3.5. Hit Apple-K or click on the “Compile” button at the top of the window.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:49 am
Just tested it out to make sure it works, and I noticed that the quotation marks get screwed up when you copy and paste. Make sure after you copy and paste it that you delete and replace the quotation marks.
yeti
March 10th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
hey guys!!!!!!! the better explanaition i found congrats!!!! and thx for the tutorial i find it very useful and cool.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Matthew saved my life…
I was about to give up but that Space between cd and username is a very key thing to leave out
March 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
this works great, and i love it….however….whenever I quite terminal, it won’t do anything when i tap it. is there a way I can keep it from shutting off?
March 25th, 2009 at 1:46 am
does this program also work on ythe new macbookpro 17” ?
April 4th, 2009 at 11:54 am
downloaded everything succesfully, but i cant get terminal to say “~/Desktop/smackbook username$” after typind in the directory for the smackbook folder
help, anyone?
April 18th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Does it work on the MacBook????
April 25th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Hi!!! well this is the problem…. I followed all the steps until “cd/Users/username/Desktop/smackbook” with my user name and it appears to me that “No such file or directory”….. Im doing something wrong??
May 21st, 2009 at 10:51 am
Hi ^^
I did everything you say I should do here…
everything seems fine… except it takes a lot of “smacks” to get the thing to change… and I can’t close Terminal because it says that will terminate all process. ô__o what should I do?
I’m worried about the smacks thing… it takes hard taps to get it to work
June 4th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
thats so sick im 9 yrs old and just did it perfectly on my new macbook its sick
June 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
[...] How To Install Smackbook On A Macbook Pro [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 9:05 am
is there anyway to load “Desktop manager” and the smack.pl script automatically on startup?
July 11th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
SOLUTION:
If it says there is no such directory, Put a space after cd, then drag the smackbook folder into the terminal window
if nothing happens after perl smack.pl make sure you copied the file ams tracker, not the folder(open the folder ams tracker.34 and drag the file amstracker into smackbook)
then it should all work
July 18th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
ok i already putted the AMStracker in the smackbook folder and then i open the terminal and type cd /Users/username/Desktop/smackbook(with my actual username) and i hit return and it shows /Users/eduardoduenas/Desktop/smackbook/notify ; exit;
July 19th, 2009 at 2:30 am
[...] non sono soldi buttati dalla “finestra”), incollo qui due link per far funzionare smackbook e [...]
July 19th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
when i type in “cd ~/Users/(my username)/Desktop/smackbook” it says “no such file or directory. but when i type in the file location (Users/(my username)/Desktop/smackbook), without the change directory command, it just says
“Users/(my username)/Desktop/smackbook is a directory”
any help?
August 9th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Hey,
I have it all working, but I was wondering if it was possible to have this smackbook setting run without having to open terminal and encoding everything all over again ?
August 13th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Hey,
I downloaded everything like you said, but i can’t seem to find the Terminal Application in my Utilities folder.I have downloaded Smackbook before, and it worked, but now, after deleting everything and downloading everything again, i can’t find Terminal. Please Help!
August 29th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Okay, so the downloads were fine.
But when i downloaded smackbook it didn’t show on my desktop so i just copied it from my dwnloads to the desktop and it worked. then i put AMSTRACKER in, all good so far.
But then when i typed in the terminal this is what i got:
Last login: Sun Aug 30 16:31:13 on ttys000
c211-30-146-130:~ JR$ cd/Users/JR/Desktop/smackbook
-bash: cd/Users/JR/Desktop/smackbook: No such file or directory
c211-30-146-130:~ JR$ perl smack.pl
Can’t open perl script “smack.pl”: No such file or directory
c211-30-146-130:~ JR$
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
very goooood tutorial , it s ok for me
thaaank’s
September 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I’ve followed all of the instructions and executed the perl smack.pl
and received this message….
AMS hardware present and initialized
according to the instructions it should now work but it doesn’t, can anyone shed some light as to why smackbook is not working? Does it matter that I’m running Snow Leopard? Do I have to have spaces setup? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!