How to capture global key presses in java

Question

I made a simple Media player in Java but I want to record global key presses like Ctrl + P to pause/resume the current music being played without the JFrame having focus but it seems that its not possible due to JVM security issues.

I came across JNativeHook but I want to implement my own method only for Windows. Please Suggest how to do it and where to begin ?

Answer 1

Try JNativeHook. Here is a sample that shows how to use it to capture global key presses:

try
{
    GlobalScreen.registerNativeHook();
    GlobalScreen.addNativeKeyListener(new NativeKeyListener()
    {

        @Override
        public void nativeKeyTyped(NativeKeyEvent nativeEvent)
        {
        }

        @Override
        public void nativeKeyReleased(NativeKeyEvent nativeEvent)
        {
            String keyText=NativeKeyEvent.getKeyText(nativeEvent.getKeyCode());
            System.out.println("User typed: "+keyText);
        }

        @Override
        public void nativeKeyPressed(NativeKeyEvent nativeEvent)
        {   
        }
     });
}
catch (NativeHookException e)
{
    e.printStackTrace();
}

If you are using maven, add this to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.1stleg</groupId>
    <artifactId>jnativehook</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.0</version>
</dependency>