Question

    private void jTextField1KeyPressed(java.awt.event.KeyEvent evt)
    {
        //cant capture my TAB?
        System.out.print(evt.getKeyChar());

    }

What is the simplest way in an java gui to capture the tab key without doing using the focus listening technique?

Answer 1

VK_TAB is the tab constant.

However: No Tab key-pressed or key-released events are received by the key event listener. This is because the focus subsystem consumes focus traversal keys, such as Tab and Shift Tab.

See: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/events/keylistener.html

To solve this, apply the following to the component that is firing the key events (e.g., the TextArea):

.setFocusTraversalKeysEnabled(false)

Using this method, you must then handle focus traversal explicitly. Alternatively, the KeyEventDispatcher class can be used to pre-listen to all key events.