Java System-Wide Keyboard Shortcut

Question

Is there any way or a library to get a system-wide (global) keyboard shortcut to perform an action in a Java application?

Answer 1

UPDATE: I don't know if you can hook events from OUTSIDE the JVM. I think a Swing/AWT component must have focus for this to work.

You'll want to hook in the Java AWT Event Queue to be absolutely sure you can get a global (jvm wide) keypress.

Use

EventQueue ev = Toolkit.getSystemEventQueue();
// MyCustomEventQueue extends EventQueue and processes keyboard events in the dispatch
ev.push(new MyCustomEventQueue());

class MyEventQueue extends EventQueue
{
    protected void dispatchEvent(AWTEvent event)
    {
       // all AWTEvents can be indentified by type, KeyEvent, MouseEvent, etc
       // look for KeyEvents and match against you hotkeys / callbacks
    }
}

I think there may be other ways to accomplish global key presses with action maps. I've actually used the above mether