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Puzzle game with KeyListener using Java GUI?

I want to implement key listener on my puzzle game.
i have done it with action listener but now want to move on with key listener.
My logic for action listener was that:
when a specific button is clicked
it checks if is adjacent button's icon is null
if it is null then their icons will be swapped
Now, how can I do it with key listener?
Thank you.
if( b1==e.getSource()){
if(b2.getIcon()==null){
b2.setIcon(b1.getIcon());
b1.setIcon(null);
}
else if(b5.getIcon()==null){
b5.setIcon(b1.getIcon());
b1.setIcon(null);
}
}

You tell us that you have implemented a KeyListener but it's not working. Without code, all we can do is guess, so here's mine:
KeyListeners require focus to work, and so if your GUI has any components that steal the focus, such as JButtons, all JTextComponents such as JTextArea or JTextField, JComboBoxes, JLists,... then your KeyListener won't work.
One kludge is to force the component with the KeyListener to have the focus and to greedily hold on to the focus. This is not advisable since it will force your program to behave abnormally since most users expect buttons to have and retain focus when pressed, and text components won't work if they're not allowed focus.
Again, often the best solution is to use Key Bindings since these can work without requiring focus and are a cleaner way to capture keystrokes. Please look at the Key Bindings Tutorial and then have a look at my example code for using Key Bindings here and here.
Again for better and more specific help, then please tell us more of the details and show us your pertinent code, preferably as a minimal example program or MCVE.

Java keyListener with multiple JPanel

I'm having a problem with Java KeyListener when adding adding another JPanel with 5 JLabels, I've searched around this website, and most solutions to this problem involve switching from KeyListener to KeyBindings. This wont work for me because I need to know exactly when a key is pressed, released and held down. To my knowledge, KeyBindings does not provide all those.
I've tried to use
this.requestFocus();
after creating the new JPanel, but it didn't work, however when I use the same line inside the paintComponent(), it works. Which brings me to my questions: How does this reflect on performance? My paintComponent() is called about 60 times/sec. Is there a way to call it once and still have this working? I see that requestDefaultFocus() from the type JComponent is deprecated...
I've also tried adding same KeyListener to the second JPanel, but that didn't help. Im guessing one of the JLabels is the one that gets focus?

This wont work for me because I need to know exactly when a key is pressed, released and held down. To my knowledge, KeyBindings does not provide all those.
Yes it does. You have an Action for "pressed" and "released". There is no such Action as "held down" (even for a KeyListener), you just get multiple events generated.
this.requestFocus();
That is not the proper method to use for requestion focus on a component. Read the API for that method and it will tell you the proper method to use.
however when I use the same line inside the paintComponent(), it works.
This is because you can't request focus on a component until the frame has been realized, which means you've invoked pack() or setVisible() on the frame.
Is there a way to call it once and still have this working?
See the RequestFocusListener class in Dialog Focus.
The proper solution is to use Key Bindings so you don't need to use these work arounds.

Globally disable all mouse input when a JDialog is showed

I would like to implement what follows:
when my application perform some critics operations or produce some errors, i want to display an alert JDialog telling the user what is happening.
Now, because some errors may put my application into an inconsistent status, until they are resolved, i would like temporarily disable mouse event dispatch to all components (including JMenu, JToolbar, .. )except the showed JDialog.
Is there anyway to do that? Or I have to manually removed all mouse listeners from all of components of my application, and re-add them later?

Make the dialog "modal" with setModal(true).

Simplest way is to call
frame.setEnabled(false);
where frame is your top-level window.
Note that the above soln may change the look of frame until its enabled again. For real control people play around with EventQueue's.

focus for java applets

I made a java game that is all based on JPanel. When I add it to a JFrame it works perfectly, and when I add it to a JApplet and test it with the built in applet tester of eclipse it works perfectly. However, when I try to run the applet through an html site it doesn't work. It loads, but it doesn't take keyboard input. I have it set up where "pressing s" starts the game, but even when I click on the game and press s, nothing happens.
Do I have to set the keyboard focus, because I thought that was done automatically.

but it doesn't take keyboard input.
KeyEvents are only passed to the component that has focus. I would guess your panel doesn't have focus, so make sure you make the panel focusable and then use the requestFocusInWindow() method once the GUI is visible to make sure the panel has focus.
However, the better solution to the problem is not to rely on the KeyListener but instead to use Key Bindings. Swing was designed to use Key Bindings.
Read more about Key Bindings.

How to make a button deep in a nested Swing panel get the "keyboard focus"?

I have a swing frame that contains embedded panels that contain other panels, etc.
Deep down, there is a button. I want the button to get focus so that pressing the "enter" key would generate an actionPerformed event.
However, if I do myButton.requestFocus() or myButton.requestFocusInWindow() the whole window gets the focus, but nothing seems to happen in terms of keyboard.
I'm obviously missing something about the focus subsystem.
Update2: I explicitly added a KeyListener in addition to the ActionListener and now it works. This is really weird, since I thought that actionListener includes both key and mouse actions.

For the enter key to work you probably want to set the default button rather than the keyboard focus:
button.getRootPane().setDefaultButton(button);
If you really want the keyboard focus then your problem might be related to when you call requestFocus. Sometimes if it is called before a component is fully visible it can be ignored. To fix that you can delay the requestFocus call until after other events have been processed:
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
button.requestFocus();
}
});

Sounds like requestFocus() is failing at some level. Try testing to see if any of the parent jPanels or other components can request focus, and work your way up to find out where the problem lies.

There is a way to programatically specify the functionality of the tab ( you know when you press tab and the next widget gets selected )
By default it follows the way the components were added.
Using this custom mechanism will let you select your nested button as the first which receive the actionperformed event.
Unfortunately I don't remember what the name for this "mechanism" is, but is something like traversal or focus traversal

First, don't use requestFocus() use requestFocusInWindow(). requestFocus has platform specific issues, while requestFocusInWindow is more consistent.
Your actual problem; the component (or one of its parents) is probably not visible, or has been render non-focusable.

I want the button to get focus so that
pressing the "enter" key would
generate an actionPerformed event.
The is LAF dependents. Enter works in Windows, but not the Metal LAF. Check out Enter Key and Button for more inforation.
The requestFocusInWindow() method only works if the Component is currently visible on the frame. There are no other tricks so we are just making random guesses about what your are doing wrong. If you need further help you need to post a SSCCE demonstrating the problem.

You can get the rootPane of the frame and update the inputMap and actionMap. See the below code.
InputMap map = getRootPane().getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_ANCESTOR_OF_FOCUSED_COMPONENT);
map.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER, 0), "ok");
ActionMap actionMap = getRootPane().getActionMap();
actionMap.put("ok", enterAction);
Here enterAction is a AbstractAction object whose actionPerformed() will be called when user presses Enter.