JAM: welcome to the Alpha phase! (Patreon)

Hello everyone! 👋First of all, I want to sincerely apologize for the delay in starting this next phase of JAM’s future. Unfortunately, over the past month I’ve only been able to dedicate time to programming during weekends, and as you can imagine, this has resulted in a significant delay in the beta development. Additionally, a number of issues came up, first with the program itself, and then with the server that will handle automatic updates, which required further delays to the development timeline.

Since my current commitments haven’t decreased, it doesn’t make much sense to keep postponing this testing phase any further. The project simply wouldn’t reach a level of stability that I’d be satisfied with for a proper beta release anytime soon. For this reason, instead of delaying again, I’ve decided to move forward with an alpha phase for the new version. This will allow those of you who are interested to follow the development process more closely and get hands-on experience with the next-generation version of JAM as it evolves. Participation is, of course, completely optional.

Renaming this phase from “beta” to “alpha” is not just a stylistic choice—it accurately reflects the current state of the software. At this stage, the program is highly unstable and many of its core features are either incomplete or not functioning at all.

That said, my goal is to improve the situation as quickly as possible by releasing frequent, targeted updates to address issues and progressively restore functionality and website supports.

This alpha access should be seen for what it really is: a way to thank those who support me on Patreon by giving them early access to the development process and the opportunity to see (and try) how the next version of JAM will work—or even just how it is being built. Nothing more, nothing less 👍

Important Notice

Before proceeding, please be aware that testing this development version requires a certain level of familiarity with computers.

You will likely encounter freezes or crashes that may require you to manually terminate the program, Java, Python, or the web browser using your system’s task manager (or sudo kill on Linux).

At this stage, there are no safeguards against invalid input. For example, attempting to restart the Python configuration wizard while it is already running will likely result in a freeze, as the program cannot delete files that are currently in use.

Additionally, if the browser crashes or is forcefully closed, there are currently no mechanisms in place to restart it automatically. This will result in errors or a full application crash.

In general, many of the usual “quality of life” safeguards—such as validation checks, warning dialogs, or restrictions on user actions—have not yet been implemented.

Please proceed with caution, as nothing will prevent you from potentially causing issues at this stage.

You may use the configuration files and database from the public version of JAM, as they remain compatible with the development build. However, I strongly advise against using this version to manage your daily manga library. Significant changes have been made to the core of the application and its libraries, and all testing so far has been limited exclusively to manual single-manga downloads. As of now, I genuinely have no certainty that the automated library features are still functional or compatible with the new download system.

Adapting and restoring the library functionality will be the final step of this process. My current priority is ensuring that the core download features work reliably. Once a solid level of stability is reached, I will move on to testing and fixing the library-related systems.

In short: I strongly recommend continuing to use the public (stable) version of JAM for your daily needs, and using this development build separately (in a different folder) only for single downloads or testing new features.

Consider this your fair warning 😅

Implemented Changes

Full modularity support: each website can now be updated independently from the main program!

New launcher: it handles downloading all required components, libs and plugins, including future updates for the main program. It also supports to launch the program by using JDK from a local folder (it must be named only "jdk" and be inserted in the same path of the launcher!) without the need to install it!

Full OkHttp implementation, with support for custom DNS, caching, and various optimizations

Improved support for generic frameworks, removing outdated ones

Simplified input interface

Enhanced supported websites list, with additional information (e.g. Python requirements, server status)

Added Python support

Added a step-by-step Python configuration wizard (available in the Extra menu)

Added basic browser integration for handling protected websites (Cloudflare, captchas, etc.)

Standardized chapter release dates using ISO format, allowing proper sorting

Significantly improved shutdown procedure, preventing file corruption and ensuring proper closure of Python services and browser instances

Currently Known Issues and Limitations

The plugins are compatible only with JDK, so you can't use the program with the standard JRE.

Currently supported websites are limited to Mangadex, Comix, Mangaplus, Mangaworld, Manhwaread and Madara generic framework compatible sites. I plan to add new ones day by day.

The download queue sometimes may not immediately reflect changes to the number of simultaneous downloads, you need to press the "Play" button many times.

The supported sites list is still based on the public version and may not be accurate for this build

Often bypassing the Cloudflare anti-bot CAPTCHA protection with Python and Chrome does not work on the first try; you just need to try again, and it should work.

If Python is not configured, browser-related features will fail with a generic error (details only in logs)

Only Chrome/Chromium is supported at the moment

The Python configuration wizard cannot be canceled mid-process

Do not close the browser window opened in the background, as this may cause the system to stall!

A browser_profile folder will be created to store browser cache and cookies for improved performance and it will be very heavy

Database/cookie management are currently disabled due to lack of testing

Library mode automatic functions are currently not tested at all and may not work/cause issues

Some features are temporarily disabled pending reimplementation

The changelog is not functional

Some messages may still reference outdated systems (e.g. web extensions or old cookie handling)

There are likely additional issues not yet discovered

📥 Download & Feedback

I believe that covers everything. I apologize for the length of this post, but it was important to provide full transparency 🙏

If you’d like to try the new version, you can download the new launcher here (a Patreon account is required to use it, you can link it from the Extra menu):

🔗 https://github.com/RedSquirrel87/jam/raw/main/alpha.jar 🔗

Please report in the comments any bugs or issues you encounter that are not listed above, so I can track and address them. Feedback from macOS and Linux users would be especially valuable, particularly regarding Python and browser integration, as my testing environment is limited to Windows.

Finally, as a way to apologize for the delay and to allow more people to participate in testing, I’m sharing a special link: the first 10 users who redeem it will receive 1 month of access for free!

🎁 https://www.patreon.com/redsquirrel87/redeem/BA28D 🎁

Thank you all for your continued support ❤