Debugging in NetBeans without changing focus - java

I have a program which uses the Robot class in Java to automate a bunch of keypresses and clicks. The problem I am encountering is not being able to set breakpoints on certain methods to debug because the focus would change when I skip to the next expression.
Is there a way I can bypass this by changing the default continue hotkey (F8) in NetBeans to a low-level keyboard hook that will check system wide?
The reason for this is because the macro I am designing runs too fast for me to see each action occurring. If I set breakpoints along the program, I must alt-tab to the IDE and continue to the next breakpoint, which, unfortunately, interferes with the macro.

If you need to interact with the system in a way that interferes with your program, you must separate your debugger from your program.
In other words, run the two on separate machines and do a remote debug from one machine to another.
The easiest way to do so if you don't have or want to use two machines, is to run your program in a virtual machine. A cheap solution is to use vmware player along with a Linux distribution supported by Netbeans.

Related

Running emacs remotely fails when no X11 forwarding

I have been writing java program that I start from the terminal. One of the tasks my program must perform is to open a text file in my favorite text editor. I have accomplished this fairly easily with the following command, but it only works in certain scenarios.
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("emacs "+p.fullName);
This works great when I am on my local Linux, and when I ssh in to a computer using the -X flag (for X11). At these times, the editor pops up in a separate window. However, if I ssh without -X, my beloved text editor never appears. It is the times that I am trying to open the editor in the same terminal as the Java program.
The reason for this seems to make sense, the java program is currently occupying the terminal, so the editor either gets created in a detached state or not at all. Either way, what I'd like to do is somehow put my program in the background and set up my editor as my foreground process. And is there a better term for this than context switching?
Edit: Emacs gives me this error at the moment: emacs: standard input is not a tty
Edit: Removed mentions of Lanterna, because bug is reproducible without it.

Java Detecting when a key is pressed

I am trying to make a program that will run infinitely until I press a button. This program will run in the background so there is no display open at all times.
while(!certainButtonIsPressed)
{
//Do Something
}
How do I make it so that while certainButtonIsPressed is valid while not making a KeyBoardListener class? Is this possible without a Key listener of some sort?
Thanks!
You ask:
I am trying to make a program that will run infinitely until I press a button. This program will run in the background so there is no display open at all times. while(!certainButtonIsPressed) { //Do Something } How do I make it so that while certainButtonIsPressed is valid while not making a KeyBoardListener class? Is this possible without a Key listener of some sort?
So basically what you're trying to do is to trap all the keypresses of platform from a background process, and this is something that core Java cannot do without use of platform-specific native code that you provide, either through some library that you've obtained, or by meshing your Java program with some key-trapping utility. So if your question is, can this be done via just Core Java? And the answer is: no.
If you are looking for non-Java platform specific solutions, then you will need to give further details. My recommendation though is not to use Java for a task that can be performed much more easily and fully with another language, perhaps a scripting language such as AutoIt, if this were for a Windows environment.

Controlling mouse when Java window is out of focus

I'm interested in writing a program that will assist me in marking exam papers online. I would like to use the keyboard to control the mouse eg if I press '1' then the mouse will be sent to a specified location and click there. This will double my work output at least. The problem is marking is done through Internet Explorer so the Java program will be out of focus. From searching this site I found that someone has written a library that can receive keyboard input out of focus but I couldn't find any such thing for mice (I don't think Java Robot works out of focus).
Does anyone know whether such a program is possible in Java using standard libraries?
The problem of course is capturing key presses when Java is not in focus. You have three main options as far as I can tell:
Write your own JNA or JNI code to register your hot keys, or
Find a library that does this and call its methods, or
Use a scripting program like AutoIt (if this is Windows) that is linked to your Java program, such as with sockets linking the standard inputs and outputs of both programs.
I have used the 3rd option successfully, but in fact for me, it was usually easier just to do everything in AutoIt.
Note that this statement is not true:
(I don't think Java Robot works out of focus).
The Java Robot doesn't require that a GUI has focus, and in fact does not require that a GUI be running at all.

Java/C++ background program to get keypress to run exe

Right, my title probably made no sense. However I'll explain it now.
I have a program coded in C++ that I wish to allow a keycombo to be pressed to run the program. My program does not run all the time it only runs when clicked then closes when the operation is complete. It simply does it's function then closes itself. Now here is the question.
Would it be simpler to attempt to edit my C++ program to run all the time via a thread in a class that then called the other class to run that did the function then stopped and listened for keypress again.
Or
Create a Java program that runs all the time and listens for a keyEvent and upon doing so runs the other programs exe. Then bundle the exe and jar in to one exe that is installed and run so they have access to each other.
If I did it this way is it even possible as far as I know key events need to have focus to be able to be detected. Meaning that I would need to be running the program as my main window to detect it? Or is that not true.
I'd looked at the java route as my Java is better than my C++. Is this do-able and if so what approach would be the better one?
Hope this is explained well enough let me know otherwise.

Fake X11 display?

I have a Java program using AWT which I would like to run on a headless system. The display for the program does nothing other than display stats. When the program finishes, it exits. There is no user interaction on the display. The program creates an output file which I use in my build system.
Is there a way to get the Java program to run without an X11 display configured? Can I force Java to run the program without trying to display anything? I do not have access to the source code (it is just .jar file), so I can't make modifications to the source.
Any thoughts on how I could get this to work?
The underlying question here is how to run Java applications without an X server; providing a "fake" X server is only one option. In Java 1.4 and up, you can do the following:
java -Djava.awt.headless=true
This allows applications which use AWT to run on headless systems even without an X server.
Xvfb can do what you ask for. I've not used it myself, but here is a link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xvfb
You can use a vncserver.
vncserver :1001
export DISPLAY=localhost:1001
java..
The added advantages is that you can actually view the gui
using vncserver 'just in case'
Could also run Xvnc in a low resolution and color depth.
As mentioned by Charles Duffy the traditional method is to tell Java to go headless.
Note that you can always mount the jar in Eclipse and use jad+jadclipse to see what it actually does, and perhaps even override a class if you need to by putting another class-file in "front" of it in the classpath.
A facility that might be relevant if the program uses Java2D is that newer Java versions use optimizations in the X11 server to render faster. This alone might be a reason to devote an X11 server attached to a high performance graphics card to your graphics processing.
I've used with great success in the past the PJA libraries, they don't seem to be maintained anymore, but then again, just just want to run...
I was able to get headless mode in OpenJFX with the command line arguments
-Dglass.platform=Monocle -Dmonocle.platform=Headless -Dprism.order=sw

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