How do you make key bindings for a java.awt.Frame?

Question

Background

My window is a java.awt.Frame, and inside of the Frame are two Panels (java.awt.Panel). I'm trying to make it so that the window handles buttons I press.

Try Number 1

I tried using a KeyListener, making the Frame implement the KeyListener. I added the KeyListener to the Frame, but the KeyListener functions didn't do anything when I pressed keys. (I tried printing with System.out.println().)

Try Number 2

I tried following this tutorial: http://tips4java.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/key-bindings/ . Here is the my attempt to handle pressing the SPACEBAR:

public void registerActions(){                                  //01
  Action myAction = new AbstractAction(){                       //02
    @Override                                                   //03
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {                //04
      System.out.println("GREAT SUCCESS!");                     //05
    }                                                           //06
  };                                                            //07
  KeyStroke key = KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_SPACE, 0); //08
  component.getInputMap().put(key, "myAction");                 //09
  component.getActionMap().put("myAction", myAction);           //10
}                                                               //11

The main problem is that I don't know what 'component' should be in lines 09 & 10, because my application does not have any JComponents.

My Question

Is there a way to do this without using swing components? Or is there another way to handle key presses?

Answer 1

I found that I could do this with an AWTEventListener.

public class MyFrame extends Frame implements AWTEventListener {

  ...

  public MyFrame(String title){
    super(title);
    ...
    this.getToolkit().addAWTEventListener(this, AWTEvent.KEY_EVENT_MASK);
  }

  @Override
  public void eventDispatched(AWTEvent event) {
    if(event instanceof KeyEvent){
      KeyEvent key = (KeyEvent)event;
      if(key.getID()==KeyEvent.KEY_PRESSED){ //Handle key presses
        System.out.println(key.getKeyChar());
        //TODO: do something with the key press
        key.consume();
      }
    }
  }
}