Joshua Marinacci's Blog

SwingHack: keyboard spinner

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.lang.Thread;

public class KeyLightTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // create the spinner
        final SpinnerThread spinner = new SpinnerThread();

        //create a frame and button
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        JButton button = new JButton("Quit");
        frame.getContentPane().add(button);
        frame.pack();
        // hook up an action to stop the spinner and quit
        button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                spinner.quit();
                System.exit(0);
            }
        });

        // start'er up!
        spinner.start();
        frame.show();
    }
}

class SpinnerThread extends Thread {
    private boolean go;
    public void quit() {
        go = false;
    }
    public void run() {
        go = true;
        // get a toolkit
        Toolkit tk = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();

        // set all keys to off
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_NUM_LOCK,false);
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_CAPS_LOCK,false);
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_SCROLL_LOCK,false);

        int key = -1;
        boolean state = false;
        // loop through 100 times
        int counter = 0;
        while(go) {
            // select each key every 3rd time
            if(counter%3 == 0) { key = KeyEvent.VK_NUM_LOCK; }
            if(counter%3 == 1) { key = KeyEvent.VK_CAPS_LOCK; }
            if(counter%3 == 2) { key = KeyEvent.VK_SCROLL_LOCK; }
            // flip the state
            state = tk.getLockingKeyState(key);
            tk.setLockingKeyState(key,!state);
            // sleep for 500 msec
            try { Thread.currentThread().sleep(500);
            } catch (InterruptedException ex) {}
            // increment counter
            counter++;
        }

        // set all keys to off
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_NUM_LOCK,false);
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_CAPS_LOCK,false);
        tk.setLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_SCROLL_LOCK,false);
    }
}

Comments

• Does not work on Linux either...
  Hi!

  I just compiled your keyboard spinner but on Linux I get the following:

  java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Toolkit.setLockingKeyState
  at java.awt.Toolkit.setLockingKeyState(Toolkit.java:1226)
  at SpinnerThread.run(KeyLightTest.java:41)

  My Java version is:

  java version "1.4.0"
  Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0-b92)
  Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.0-b92, mixed mode)

  Posted by: borisklug on September 01, 2003 at 12:08 AM

• Does not work on Linux either...
  You tried to run the program as root? Under any unix, a regular user probably don't have permissions to directly access the hardware. That or Sun didn't implement this in the Linux JDK (bad, bad sun).

  Posted by: mbrito on September 01, 2003 at 12:45 PM

• Does not work on Linux either...
  I'd assume the latter (that Sun did not implement it for Linux). If it were a root issue, you should probably get a SecurityException rather than an UnsupportedOperationException.

  I'll have to try it on Mac OS X when I get home.

  Posted by: jimothy on September 02, 2003 at 05:54 AM

• Does not work on Linux either...
  I doesn't work under Sun's Linux SDK 1.4.2, root or non-root.
  Worked fine under Windows XP.

  Posted by: ktorn on September 02, 2003 at 08:11 AM

• Applet version
  Here is the applet version of the above code.

  http://webdev.apl.jhu.edu/~kalman/Cute.html

  The actual code is in

  http://webdev.apl.jhu.edu/~kalman/cute/

  Posted by: kalman on September 02, 2003 at 08:53 AM

• brightened my day ;)
  hah cute

  Posted by: noelisevil on September 24, 2003 at 01:22 AM

• wow power leveling
  wow powerleveling
  wow power leveling
  wow gold
  wow items
  feelingame.com
  wow tips
  Most Valuable WOW Power Leveling Service
  wow power leveling faq
  cheap wow power leveling
  wow power leveling
  wow powerleveling
  wow power lvl

  Posted by: wowleveling on December 13, 2007 at 12:30 AM

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.