Simulate mouse move and key pressing

In this example we are going to see how to simulate mouse moves and key pressing events in a Java Desktop Application. This is a quite cool feature that you can use in many ways in your application. For example you can have an interactive “Help” option that shows the user how to perform a certain activity in your applcation.

In short all you have to do in order to simulate mouse moves and key pressing events is:

• Create a new Frame and a new TextArea.
• Create a new Robot component.
• Use robot.mouseMove(xCoord, yCoord) to move the mouse pointer in the coordinates you wish.
• Use robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK) to press the key want.
• Use robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK) to release the key.

Let’s see the code snippet that follows:

package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.desktop;

import java.awt.AWTException;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.TextArea;
import java.awt.event.InputEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;

public class SimulateMouseMoveAndKeyPress {

  public static void main(String[] args) {

    try {

	// Create frame with specific title

  Frame frame = new Frame("Example Frame");

  // Create a component to add to the frame; in this case a text area with sample text

  Component textArea = new TextArea();

  // Add the components to the frame; by default, the frame has a border layout

  frame.add(textArea, BorderLayout.CENTER);

  // Show the frame

  int width = 300;

  int height = 300;

  frame.setSize(width, height);

  frame.setVisible(true);

  // These coordinates are screen coordinates

  int xCoord = 50;

  int yCoord = 100;

  // Move the cursor

  Robot robot = new Robot();

  robot.mouseMove(xCoord, yCoord);

  // Simulate a mouse click

  robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);

  robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);

  // Simulate a key press

  robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_H);

  robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_H);

  robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_E);

  robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_E);

  robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_L);

  robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_L);

  robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_L);

  robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_L);

  robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_O);

  robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_O);

    } catch (AWTException e) {

System.out.println("Low level input control is not allowed " + e.getMessage());
    }

  }

}

 
This was an example on how to simulate mouse moves and key pressing events.