swing - Java mouse motion anywhere on screen

Question

I'm sure this is possible but all my searching is coming up blank.

In Java is it possible to register for a mouse motion event outside of a Java app? So if the mouse pointer moves anywhere on the screen I get a call back. An approximation is possible with polling MouseInfo.getPointerInfo but there must be a better way.

Thanks

To explain the use case: It's just for a pet project but basically firing events when the mouse hits the edge of the screen. I was also thinking that different events could be fired if you try to push past the edge of the screen. And for this I thought a mouse motion listener might be more appropriate.

Answer 1

java.awt.event.MouseMotionListener is only going to give you information about mouse movement inside your application window. For events that occur outside that window, there is no way around MouseInfo.getPointerInfo. However, you could write a (potentially singleton) class that polls the pointer info in regular intervals and allows MouseMotionListeners to be added:

import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.MouseInfo;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseMotionListener;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.Timer;

/**
 * This class checks the position every #DELAY milliseconds and 
 * informs all registered MouseMotionListeners about position updates.
 */
public class MouseObserver {
    /* the resolution of the mouse motion */
    private static final int DELAY = 10;

    private Component component;
    private Timer timer;
    private Set<MouseMotionListener> mouseMotionListeners;

    protected MouseObserver(Component component) {
        if (component == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Null component not allowed.");
        }

        this.component = component;

        /* poll mouse coordinates at the given rate */
        timer = new Timer(DELAY, new ActionListener() {
                private Point lastPoint = MouseInfo.getPointerInfo().getLocation();

                /* called every DELAY milliseconds to fetch the
                 * current mouse coordinates */
                public synchronized void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    Point point = MouseInfo.getPointerInfo().getLocation();

                    if (!point.equals(lastPoint)) {
                        fireMouseMotionEvent(point);
                    }

                    lastPoint = point;
                }
            });
        mouseMotionListeners = new HashSet<MouseMotionListener>();
    }

    public Component getComponent() {
        return component;
    }

    public void start() {
        timer.start();
    }

    public void stop() {
        timer.stop();
    }

    public void addMouseMotionListener(MouseMotionListener listener) {
        synchronized (mouseMotionListeners) {
            mouseMotionListeners.add(listener);
        }
    }

    public void removeMouseMotionListener(MouseMotionListener listener) {
        synchronized (mouseMotionListeners) {
            mouseMotionListeners.remove(listener);
        }
    }

    protected void fireMouseMotionEvent(Point point) {
        synchronized (mouseMotionListeners) {
            for (final MouseMotionListener listener : mouseMotionListeners) {
                final MouseEvent event =
                    new MouseEvent(component, MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVED, System.currentTimeMillis(),
                                   0, point.x, point.y, 0, false);

                SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
                        public void run() {
                            listener.mouseMoved(event);
                        }
                    });
            }
        }
    }

    /* Testing the ovserver */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame main = new JFrame("dummy...");
        main.setSize(100,100);
        main.setVisible(true);

        MouseObserver mo = new MouseObserver(main);
        mo.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionListener() {
                public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) {
                    System.out.println("mouse moved: " + e.getPoint());
                }

                public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
                    System.out.println("mouse dragged: " + e.getPoint());
                }
            });

        mo.start();
    }
}

Beware that there are some notable differences from your standard MouseMotionListener though:

• You will only receive mouseMoved events, never mouseDragged events. That's because there is no way to receive information about clicks outside the main window.
• For similar reasons, the modifiers of each MouseEvent will be always be 0.
• The same goes for the values clickCount, popupTrigger, button
• You will need to provide a dummy java.awt.Component that will be used as the (fake) source of the MouseEvents - null values are not allowed here.