How can I use the back and forward mouse buttons in a Swing application?

Question

The question is pretty simple. I couldn\'t find many links regarding this issue, and the ones I found didn\'t seemed to avoid the real question. My application must handle t

Answer 1

Credit belongs to the original responders, just adding a ready-to-use code sample for global back-/forward-button detection in case it helps anyone else (JDK 1.8)

if (Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().areExtraMouseButtonsEnabled() && MouseInfo.getNumberOfButtons() > 3) {
    Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().addAWTEventListener(event -> {
        if (event instanceof MouseEvent) {
            MouseEvent mouseEvent = (MouseEvent) event;
            if (mouseEvent.getID() == MouseEvent.MOUSE_RELEASED && mouseEvent.getButton() > 3) {
                if (mouseEvent.getButton() == 4) {
                    // back
                } else if (mouseEvent.getButton() == 5) {
                    // forward
                }
            }
        }
    }, AWTEvent.MOUSE_EVENT_MASK);
}