Event listener in Java without app having focus? (Global keypress detection)?

It's my understanding that this can't be done. At a fundamental level, the JVM only generates events for O/S events it receives, and it only receives O/S input events when it has focus I am sure you could use JNI to trigger the O/S to generate events for all input, but that would be very O/S dependent.

It's my understanding that this can't be done. At a fundamental level, the JVM only generates events for O/S events it receives, and it only receives O/S input events when it has focus. I am sure you could use JNI to trigger the O/S to generate events for all input, but that would be very O/S dependent.

1 +1. I would be very surprised if there were a way to do this without JNI or some other access outside the JVM. – Eddie Apr 29 '09 at 4:49.

I'm not aware of any way to get around that either. I did find this link on Java's forums with a good example of how to setup the JNI stuff and make a global keyboard handler (too much to add here). It's a little dated (2005), but the example looks thorough enough to get you started.

Here is the best answer I've found: " There is a library to handle native keyboard and mouse control: code.google.com/p/jnativehook.

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