iJect 1.2

Important Note: iJect is for Mac OS X 10.0 and does not work on newer versions. We still preserve these pages because developers may be interested in the techiques we used.

Are you good at typewriting and always hit the right keys? Then you don't need iJect. If you often miss the target key on the keyboard, you will need the backspace key frequently. However, if you miss this one on (for instance) the new iBook, it is very likely that the CDROM tray will open because the eject key F12 is just above the backspace key. There are two solutions for this problem: Either you practice typewriting or you install iJect.

Note: Since Mac OS X 10.1.2, Apple has provided a solution for the problem. See the right column of this page. On Mac OS X 10.1.5 and probably all later versions, iJect causes a kernel panic! Since iJect is highly system dependent and it is of very limited use on newer Mac OS X releases, we discontinue support for this tool. The web page and a developer article are still provided as a technical reference.

How does iJect work?

iJect is a Mac OS X kernel extension which is loaded at system startup. It hooks into the keyboard driver and drops eject events if the Apple key is not pressed.

Download

Please download a binary for drag-and-drop installation from the following box. To install it, drag the "iJect" folder to your "/Library/StartupItems" folder on your Mac OS X startup volume. For detailled instructions please see the included "Readme" file.

Download iJect
iJect-1.2.dmg.gz	Download	109 kB
iJect-1.0.dmg.gz	Download	93 kB

Please note that iJect 1.0 is for Mac OS X 10.0 and iJect 1.2 for Mac OS X 10.1. Don't download the debug version unless we asked you to help us debugging!

For Software Developers

If you are a software developer, you may be interested to see how iJect is implemented. Please see our developer article for design considerations of the original iJect and download the source code:

Download iJect Source Code
iJect-1.2-Source.tar.gz	Download	6757 bytes
iJect-1.0-Source.tar.gz	Download	6207 bytes

Intercepting Keyboard Events

What's new in 1.2?

Should now work with all keyboard types and computer.
Performs original F12 eject action when shift- or Apple-F12 is pressed.
Disables F12 completely (not only for eject action). It is therefore not possible to assign other functions to F12.

iJect and Mac OS X 10.1.2

Apple has implemented a solution to the "accidental eject" problem in Mac OS X 10.1.2 which makes iJect more or less obsolete: If you press F12 for less than 0.25 seconds, it is interpreted as the function key F12. If you press it longer, it is interpreted as eject.

Since the new mechanism is implemented before the point where iJect intercepts (at least for USB and ADB keyboards), iJect stopped working on many computers. It still works with the iBook and maybe other notebooks, but it conflicts with a new 10.1.2 feature on these computers: Command-Alt-F12 sets the computer into sleep mode immediately and Command-Alt-Ctrl-F12 shuts it down. Again, these functions are protected with a 0.25 second timing.

Although it is of limited use now, we still provide iJect as a good example of how the operation of kernel classes can be modified by a loadable kernel module.