Creating a simple Mouse Analyzer with Java Swing

Today we are going to discuss about a program which can come real handy to the jobs which require good knowledge of screen coordinates and game programming.

With this program you can:

Track the current mouse coordinates
Determine events like Mouse Clicks, Mouse Pressed, and Mouse Dragged etc

Let’s start to see how we make this happen.

First of we will include all the imports :

Listing1 : Including all the imports

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseMotionListener;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

Now, we will discuss these imports:

Dimension class is used to store the coordinates. For our program we will store the screen size coordinates in the Dimension object.
FlowLayout is the layout of all the frame components
ToolKit is used for obtaining the screen size
MouseEvent tells that an event occur inside the frame component.
MouseListener and MouseMotionListener are used to listen to any mouse event like mouse click, drag etc.
JFrame is used for defining a frame
JLabel is use for defining a label

Listing2: Defining class and main method

public class MouseTracker  extends JFrame
implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener {

	JLabel mousePosition;
public static void main(String args[])
	{
		new MouseTracker().start();
		
	}

Here the name of class is MouseTracker. It implements MouseListener and MouseMotionListener classes which are used to listen to any mouse event like mouse click, drag etc. This is done by implementing the methods of these interfaces, but we will define those methods later.

We define a label named mousePosition which is used to show notifications on current mouse coordinates, define the main method and call the start method which will contain all the processing.

Now we will implement the methods inside these interfaces.

Listing3: Defining Methods of the interfaces

	@Override
	public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse clicked at coordinate : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Current mouse Coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse outside access window");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse pressed at coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Current mouse coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse dragged at coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse moved to coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

Now we will explain the code:

All of the methods contain an argument of type MouseEvent which contain the information like mouse coordinates information.

The getX() and getY() are used to obtain the mouse x and y coordinates.
mouseClicked methods is called once there is mouse movement inside the frame.
mouseEntered method is called when mouse comes from an outside window to the frame.
mouseExited method is called when mouse goes outside of the frame i.e. JFrame
mousePressed is called when the mouse is pressed
mouseReleased is called when mouse key is released
mouseDragged method is called when mouse gets dragged
mouseMoved is called when mouse is mouse from its location.

Now we will define the start method :

Listing4: Defining the start method

	public void start()
	{
		mousePosition=new JLabel();
		 addMouseListener( this );        // listens for own mouse and
	      addMouseMotionListener( this );  // mouse-motion events
	      setLayout(new FlowLayout(1));
	      add(mousePosition);
	      Dimension size = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
	      setSize(size );
	      setUndecorated(true);
	      setVisible( true );
	      setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
	}
}

In the code above:

We add the mouselistener to our frame, so that whenever any mouse event occur inside the frame then it
can be reported.
We set the frame layout to be FlowLayout. We will add the label to our frame.
We obtain the screen size by using Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize() method.
We set the size of the frame as screen size so that the frame is full sized frame.
We set the frame as Undecorated so that the frame will have no title bar.
We set the frame visibility as true.
We set setDefaultCloseOperation as EXITONCLOSE so that the program gets closed when frame is closed.

Output:

Full Source Code:

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseMotionListener;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

public class MouseTracker  extends JFrame
implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener {

	JLabel mousePosition;
	@Override
	public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse clicked at coordinate : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Current mouse Coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse outside access window");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse pressed at coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Current mouse coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse dragged at coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	@Override
	public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) {
		mousePosition.setText("Mouse moved to coordinates : ["+e.getX()+","+e.getY()+"]");
		
	}

	public static void main(String args[])
	{
		new MouseTracker().start();
		
	}
	public void start()
	{
		mousePosition=new JLabel();
		 addMouseListener( this );        // listens for own mouse and
	      addMouseMotionListener( this );  // mouse-motion events
	      setLayout(new FlowLayout(1));
	      add(mousePosition);
	      Dimension size = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
	      setSize(size );
	      setUndecorated(true);
	      setVisible( true );
	      setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
	}
}

I Hope you like and in the next article I'll show how transfer files between 2 computers.

See you next time.

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Creating a simple Mouse Analyzer with Java Swing

Mouse analyzer will help you determine the coordinates of your current mouse location.Actually mouse analyzer application can be helpful in game programming app where you want to know about mouse activities or the current mouse position.

Full Source Code: