How to emulate pressing media keys in Java?

Question

How can I emulate pressing media keys in Java? Such as play/pause, next/previous, volume control.

C# has VK_MEDIA_PLAY_PAUSE, VK_MEDIA_NEXT_TRACK

Answer 1

Create your own keylistener and spy for whatever comes and then use this value. Here is simple KeySpy class:

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

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


public class KeySpy {
    JLabel label=new JLabel("Enter the key");
    public KeySpy() {
        JFrame frame=new JFrame("KeySpy");
        frame.add(label);

        frame.addKeyListener(new KeyListener() {

            @Override
            public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
            }

            @Override
            public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
            }

            @Override
            public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
                label.setText(e.toString());
                System.out.println(e.toString());
            }
        });

        frame.setSize(200, 200);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

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

    }

}

and here is result for 2 buttons on my keyboard

   [Stop] = java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_PRESSED,keyCode=0,keyText=Unknown keyCode: 0x0,keyChar=Undefined keyChar,keyLocation=KEY_LOCATION_STANDARD,rawCode=178,primaryLevelUnicode=0,scancode=36,extendedKeyCode=0x0] on frame0

   [Mute] = java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_PRESSED,keyCode=0,keyText=Unknown keyCode: 0x0,keyChar=Undefined keyChar,keyLocation=KEY_LOCATION_STANDARD,rawCode=173,primaryLevelUnicode=0,scancode=32,extendedKeyCode=0x0] on frame0

As you can see they do not have keyCode but they do have rawCode - so use it.