Remove/disable/override Swing's focus traversal keys - java

Note: see the edit (save some time reading)
I'm trying to make my mind-mapping program respond to shortcuts like CTRL+RIGHT (reordering nodes) and TAB (insert child at next indent level). I have a JPanel that handles all of the keystrokes. It resides inside of a JTabbedPane that might be the cause for Key Bindings not working. I've chickened out and decided to just use KeyListener.
The problem is that with the aforementioned key combinations, Swing automatically shifts the focus to some other component. I'd rather not manually put setFocusable(false) everywhere. How can I disable these shortcuts altogether in such a way that the focus will not be shifted, and the relevant KeyEvents will still be sent to my JPanel?
Edit:
I used the following code:
for (int id : new int[] {KeyboardFocusManager.FORWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, KeyboardFocusManager.BACKWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, KeyboardFocusManager.UP_CYCLE_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, KeyboardFocusManager.DOWN_CYCLE_TRAVERSAL_KEYS})
setFocusTraversalKeys(id, Collections.EMPTY_SET);
to disable the default traversal keys (particularly TAB.)
Now the issue is actually why CTRL+UP causes a loss of focus. When pressing CTRL+DOWN, for instance, it's fine. The component behaves as expected. But with CTRL+UP, it works as expected and then focus is shifted/lost somehow. Can anyone say what CTRL+UP means and how to disable it wherever it is? Google isn't helping.

KeyBinding are used for all KeyEvents implemented in Swing APIs, maybe there is/are conflict
is required to override required KeyBindings, change used Keys, set to null, e.i. depends of your requirements
list of KeyBindings by #camickr

Related

Forward all key events to parent JFrame

I need that all the key events (including Carriage Return, TAB, etc) generated by all child or grandchildren components of a JFrame, to be listened for a single method inside this JFrame. I have googled a lot, but I have not been able to find the solution I need. I found a partial solution using "InputMap/ActionMap", but it only allows to add particular KeyStrokes on the InputMap, but I need all possible Key Strokes to be forwarded to the parent JFrame.
Thanks.
(I saw this thread, but I was expecting a solution within the Swing API, specifically to address this subject.
Check out Global Event Listeners which gives you a couple of choices:
Use an AWTEventListener.
Us a KeyEventPostProcessor.

Capturing "Tab" key press by both the focused component and its container

Is there a way to propagate a key press from say a JTextField to its container's KeyListener implementation?
So in effect, the keypress would be acted upon by both the text field and the JPanel. Right now the text field is consuming the key press so is nonexistent to the JPanel underneath.
In Swing, the tab key is used to change the focus from one component to another. The article Validating Input discusses InputVerifier, which may help you do what you want.
The question is why do you want to do this? What is your actual requirement as oppose to your attempted solution. Having an event handled by two components is generally not a good idea.
In general you should not use KeyListeners. Swing was designed to use Key Bindings. However, in this case it won't help because as mentioned earlier the focus subsystem handles the tab key.
If this is the only solution to your problem, then I think you can use KeyEventPostProcessor to listen for any KeyEvent. See Global Event Listeners for more info.

Passing accelerator keystrokes to the main menu in Java

I have added some accelerators to the main menu, using MenuItem.setAccelerator(). Just basic stuff like ctrl-c for copy, etc.
This works ok. But the app is a bit like an IDE, it has several panels containing JTables. If a table cell has focus, it absorbs the accelerator key, which means the main menu never sees it.
Clearly, if an editable table cell is active I would like the cut and paste keys to function normally, but in every other case I would like the main menu to respond.
Any ideas?
KeyStrokes go to the component that has focus first. Since JTable binds Ctrl+C to an Action, that action is invoked.
If you don't like the default Action of the table, then you would need to remove the binding from the table.
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use Key Bindings. It shows you how to remove a binding.
Thanks, that got me on the right track.
Removing the bindings didn't quite work, it just stopped the table doing its default action so the keypress was ignored altogether.
However, adding this to the table itself worked ok:
component.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_C, ActionEvent.CTRL_MASK), "copy");
component.getActionMap().put("copy", actions.copyAction);
(Repeated for each desired key of course). Needs to be kept in synch with any changes to the main menu itself, but I can't see a way to avoid that with any method.

Can multiple accelerators be defined for a JMenuItem?

I've a problem with setAccelerator(). Right now, I have the code that works for Ctrl+X for DELETE operation. I want to set the accelerator to Shift+Delete as well for same JMenuItem.
My code as follows:
JMenuItem item = new JMenuItem(menuText);
item.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(
KeyEvent.VK_X, KeyEvent.CTRL_MASK));
item.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(
KeyEvent.VK_DELETE, KeyEvent.SHIFT_MASK));
but this is working only for Shift+Delete operation. Seems it is overriding the Ctrl+X operation. Can we make both these keystrokes work at the same time?
Please guide.
Yes it can be done. Behind the scenes the setAccelerator() is just creating a Key Binding, however as you noticed the second binding replaces the first.
So, you need to create an Action (not an ActionListener) to add the to the menu item. Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use Actions for more information. Now that you have created the Action, you can share the Action with another KeyStroke by manually creating a Key Binding. You can read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use Key Bindings for a detailed explanation. Or you can read my blog on Key Bindings which give some simple code examples.
This second binding will not show up on the menu item itself.
From: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/AWTEvent.html
The masks are also used to specify to which types of events an AWTEventListener should listen.
So you can combine the mask for two keys, but not the KeyEvents.
item.setAccelerator(
KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(
KeyEvent.VK_X, KeyEvent.CTRL_MASK + KeyEvent.SHIFT_MASK));
A workaround solution would be to catch the KeyEvent in the middle (after your component fired it, but before your listeners will act on it) and check, whether its one of the two combinations. Then fire one event, on which you programmatically agree to represent the action you wanted.
The second call indeed overrides the accelerator. If the method starts with set, there will be only one. If the method starts with add, you can have more than one (for example for a number of listeners).
If you want multiple keystrokes to do the same, I think you should add a keyListener to the top frame (or panel, dialog, ...) which invokes the action listeners added to the menuItem.

Listening to all JInternalFrame events - Java

I'm trying to internationalise a Java applet and with that, support scripts which are written from right to left. I want to set up component orientations for all java components added to the view automatically.
My solution so far has to listen to all AWTEvent's using the windows mask:
c.getToolkit().addAWTEventListener(listener, AWTEvent.WINDOW_EVENT_MASK);
...and then setting the c/o on each window added, as well as adding component listeners to set c/o on any components added to the window at a later point.
My issue is that JInternalFrames are not handled by this solution, I want to be able to add another listener for these events, much like I have done for windows. Any ideas?
Or alternatively, are there any better approaches to handling script direction for all components in an applet?
Add a ContainerListener to the JDesktopPane. As a component is added to the desktop you can change its orientation.
Do you have a handle on all those JInternalFrames? If so, try the internal frame listener.
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/swing/event/InternalFrameListener.html
It notes that it's the analogue to the AWT WindowListener.
AWTEventListener on the current Toolkit will only give you events coming from the toolkit. Generally events generated by lightweight components will have been caused by mouse or key events.
Asking for all of something in a process is usually a very bad sign. A low-level piece of code is making policy for the whole program. A much better approach is to add listeners near to where you create the component, before it is "realised". This is repeated code, but then you probably already have repeated code. So factor out into a method. Then you have only one place to update, unless you have any cases where it doesn't apply which would have broken the global approach.

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