Accelerator key on ChartPanel in Swing?

[JGoodwin]

Hello all,

I have a subclass of ChartPanel and I want it to respond when the user types
a backspace by reverting the chart to a previous state. How do I go about
making the chart respond to backspace?

My first idea was to override createPopupMenu from ChartPanel and add a
new item "Back" to that menu, and then put an accelerator key on that item.
I got the item to work ok: it appears in the menu and if you choose it, it
runs my action.

Then I wrote:

Code: Select all

char backspace = KeyEvent.VK_BACK_SPACE;
item.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(backspace));

But I cannot get it to respond to what I type, not for backspace or
any other character either.

Do I have to turn on the capability to respond to accelerator keys
somewhere?

Is there a better way to do this? I don't care whether the
command is on the popup menu or not; I just want it to respond to
the keystroke. I could perhaps live with another key if it turns out
that Backspace [ascii 8] is a problem in some way.

Thanks
Jim Goodwin

[skunk]

Did you try something like this yet?

Code: Select all

chartPanel.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_BACK_SPACE, 0), "foo");
chartPanel.getActionMap().put("foo", new AbstractAction() {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        // whatever
    }
});

Note that by default Swing JPanels are not focusable, so you MAY need this in a mouse handler

Code: Select all

chartPanel.requestFocus();

[JGoodwin]

MUCH better.

Many thanks

Jim

[david.gilbert]

Interesting, thanks Skunk for the answer!