How do you record keystrokes when operating on another window in Java?

Question

I'm looking to record keystrokes and mouse positions while I'm in a browser window on various websites, but I'm not sure how to do this outside the SWING (or some other GUI) window.

How can I record keystrokes when a different application's window is the one active?

Answer 1

The support you need is not exposed by Java. It is a fairly simple matter to do this if you have access to the RECORD extension in X, or Win32 on Windows.

Here is a Python project that implements support for both of these platforms: pykeylogger.

Answer 2

(Windows only) In theory you could use JNA or JNI to bind to GetAsyncKeyState and you'd be able to monitor key presses.