Java mouse motion anywhere on screen

java, mouseevent, swing

Solution

`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 `MouseEvent`s - `null` values are not allowed here.

Problem

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.

Original source