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Re: KeyEvent.getKeyText() went wonky (won't display arrows)

These were changed intentionally to provide the proper symbols for menu shortcuts in Swing for in-window menu bars. Instead of using the word "Meta" or "Command" we actually now return the unicode symbol that the system menu bar shows.

Unfortunately, there did not appear to be a reasonable injection point between the AWT toolkit properties and the Swing menu system...and the fallout is that it makes debugging modifier keys from Terminal more difficult. The tradeoff was basically between a user-visible bug, and a behavior only developers would see.

Any suggestions how to provide the key symbols in Swing, and maintain the existing semantics of KeyEvent.getKeyModifiersText() and KeyEvent.getKeyText() would be appreciated.

My understanding of the contract of getKeyText() is that it returns a human-readable textual description of a keycode. I would first suggest putting getKeyText() back the way it was, as the current implementation breaks that. This is not, as you characterize it, a tradeoff between a user-visible bug and one only developers would see -- it is a broken API which I discovered because it broke my app in a very user-visible way (the text displayed for their selected keys turned from "Left Arrow" to "?").

That said... how to get it so OS-X can have access to the pretty menu- key characters in the particular font where they're displayed? Why couldn't you use a derivative method? What you have is a special-case need for Apple-OS, so why not make a special-case class, AppleKeyEvent (extends KeyEvent) that has the override getKeyText() behaviour you want, without altering established behaviour. If *I* wanted to produce special-case output for getKeyText(), and I didn't have the ability to alter the world of millions of other people by changing Java itself, that's what I'd have to do. :)

Thanks!


On Jan 26, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Mike Swingler wrote:

On Jan 26, 2008, at 1:38 PM, Greg Guerin wrote:

Mac First wrote:

On my Intel/Leopard system, I get this:

[Session started at 2008-01-25 18:50:00 -0800.]
Pigs!
type : 401 // (401 = keydown)
code: 32
text: ? // <space>
type : 400 // 400 = key-repeat? Key-typed? Whatever...
code: 0
text: Unknown keyCode: 0x0
type : 402 // (402 = keyup)
code: 32
text: ?
type : 401
code: 37 // left arrow
text: ?
type : 402
code: 37
text: ?
type : 401
code: 39 // right arrow

The ResourceBundle for "sun.awt.resources.awt" appears to be screwy under
Java 1.5, but fine under 1.4.2, both on Leopard. It's also fine under 1.5
or 1.4.2 on 10.4.9.

Test program:

- - - - -
// This code released into the public domain.
// AS-IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY.
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;

public class KeyTexts
{
public static void main( String[] args )
{
 show( 27 );
 show( 37 );
 show( 20 );
 show( 909 );  // illegal/unknown

 ResourceBundle bundle = null;
 try
 { bundle = ResourceBundle.getBundle( "sun.awt.resources.awt" ); }
 catch ( Exception ignored )
 { ; }

 System.out.println( "bundle = " + bundle );
}

private static void show( int code )
{  System.out.println( "code: " + code
    + ", text: " + KeyEvent.getKeyText( code ) );  }
}
- - - - -

To understand what it's testing and the significance of that
ResourceBundle, look at the source of java.awt.Toolkit.getProperty(), and
Toolkit's static initializer for the 'resources' field. Also see source of
KeyEvent.getKeyText() for how Toolkit.getProperty() gets in.

I'm afraid I don't know of a fix. Maybe use reflection to set the
'resources' static field in Toolkit to null, but I'm not sure of all the
consequences. Alternatively, set the right property or config- value so the
ResourceBundle.getBundle() refers to something correct instead of screwy.

Definitely file a bug, because this ought to work.
<http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter>

Feel free to use the above code to demonstrate the problem.

These were changed intentionally to provide the proper symbols for menu shortcuts in Swing for in-window menu bars. Instead of using the word "Meta" or "Command" we actually now return the unicode symbol that the system menu bar shows.

Unfortunately, there did not appear to be a reasonable injection point between the AWT toolkit properties and the Swing menu system...and the fallout is that it makes debugging modifier keys from Terminal more difficult. The tradeoff was basically between a user-visible bug, and a behavior only developers would see.

Any suggestions how to provide the key symbols in Swing, and maintain the existing semantics of KeyEvent.getKeyModifiersText() and KeyEvent.getKeyText() would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike Swingler
Java Frameworks Engineer
Apple Inc.
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