Swing's KeyListener and multiple keys pressed at the same time

Question

is there any conventional way in swing of tracking down the events, when two keyboard keys are pressed at the same time? I have a couple of ideas e.g. remembering the key and event generation time so that we could in a consecutive event handler invocation check the time difference between these two events and decide, whether it's a two-button event or not. But it looks like a kludge.

Answer 1

Use a collection to remember which keys are currently pressed and check to see if more than one key is pressed every time a key is pressed.

class MultiKeyPressListener implements KeyListener {
    // Set of currently pressed keys
    private final Set<Integer> pressedKeys = new HashSet<>();
        
    @Override
    public synchronized void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
        pressedKeys.add(e.getKeyCode());
        Point offset = new Point();
        if (!pressedKeys.isEmpty()) {
            for (Iterator<Integer> it = pressedKeys.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
                switch (it.next()) {
                    case KeyEvent.VK_W:
                    case KeyEvent.VK_UP:
                        offset.y = -1;
                        break;
                    case KeyEvent.VK_A:
                    case KeyEvent.VK_LEFT:
                        offset.x = -1;
                        break;
                    case KeyEvent.VK_S:
                    case KeyEvent.VK_DOWN:
                        offset.y = 1;
                        break;
                    case KeyEvent.VK_D:
                    case KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT:
                        offset.x = 1;
                        break;
                }
            }
        }
        System.out.println(offset); // Do something with the offset.
    }
    
    @Override
    public synchronized void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
        pressedKeys.remove(e.getKeyCode());
    }
    
    @Override
    public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) { /* Event not used */ }
}

Answer 2

If after 7 years I tried to do this (just to see if it is possible), someone else might as well...

The code below controls the movement with 8 axis direction, explanation in the comments. But basically, the KeyListener just define where it is possible to move, then a Thread will combine the possible destinations and move the JLabel.

package tests;

import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyListener;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

public class Move8Axis extends JFrame {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 7722803326073073681L;

    private boolean left = false;
    private boolean up = false;
    private boolean down = false;
    private boolean right = false;

    private JLabel lbl = new JLabel("#");


    public Move8Axis() {
        // Just setting up the window and objects
        setSize(400, 400);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setVisible(true);
        lbl.setBounds(100, 100, 20, 20);
        add(lbl);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);

        // Key listener, will not move the JLabel, just set where to
        addKeyListener(new KeyListener() {
            @Override
            public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {}
            @Override
            public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) left = false;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) right = false;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_UP) up = false;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) down = false;
            }
            @Override
            public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) left = true;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) right = true;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_UP) up = true;
                if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) down = true;
            }
        });

        // This thread will read the 4 variables left/right/up/down at every 30 milliseconds
        // It will check the combination of keys (left and up, right and down, just left, just up...) 
        // And move the label 3 pixels
        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {

                    while (true) {  
                        if (left && up) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() - 3, lbl.getY() - 3, 20, 20);
                        } else if (left && down) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() - 3, lbl.getY() + 3, 20, 20);
                        } else if (right && up) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() + 3, lbl.getY() - 3, 20, 20);
                        } else if (right && down) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() + 3, lbl.getY() + 3, 20, 20);
                        } else if (left) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() - 3, lbl.getY(), 20, 20);
                        } else if (up) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX(), lbl.getY() - 3, 20, 20);
                        } else if (right) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX() + 3, lbl.getY(), 20, 20);
                        } else if (down) {
                            lbl.setBounds(lbl.getX(), lbl.getY() + 3, 20, 20);
                        } 

                        Thread.sleep(30);
                    }

                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    ex.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(0);
                }
            }
        }).start();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Move8Axis();
    }
}

Answer 3

The KeyListener interface allows detecting key pressing and releasing separately. Therefore, you can maintain a set of "active keys", i.e. keys which have been pressed but not released yet.