Thread: Track Mouse Movements

Hi

Looking for some advice, I want to be able to record the mouse movement coordinates and record them each time the mouse moves or clicks.

Now my idea is to run a java app in the background and then this will record the coordinates of the mouse when the user is using their programs so I can then use the coordinates to automate mouse movements and simulate clicks to automate tasks so obviously I need to be able to use all programs on the computer but to record the clicks and movements.

I have looked and it seems there is a mouse listener which will achieve this however it seems to need to occur over a java component so I need a way to have a jFrame/Panel invisible and not in the way of the programs I am using so It can record the coordinates when using the other programs.

Can anyone think of a way to achieve this?

Thanks

Tracking mouse movements is easy enough with MouseInfo. It's a limited solution though because it won't handle click events. A hackish solution to grab click events would be to add a AWTEventListener to monitor system-wide AWT events. It's a problematic solution because if the app looses focus the events won't get picked up.

Another, even more hackish solution would be to put a windowless, transparent JFrame over the entire screen and use that to monitor click/mouse moves. When a click even occurs, minimize the transparent window, use a Robot so that whatever is under the JFrame recieves the input then re-maximize the window. It will be more reliable than an AWTEventListener but jam packed full of gotcha's.

Thanks, looks like I could use this, just need to find a way so I can manipulate the application underneath whilst a semi-transparent jframe is on the whole screen. I tried the Robot as suggested and it works but there are lots of gotchas like you have mentioned so I guess it is just the case of working through them and finding a solution to each one when they turn up.