With this example we shall show you how to work with MouseListener and MouseMotionListener interfaces in order to handle and monitor mouse events an especially mouse drags. This is a very nice feature to use if your application has many graphical object that the user needs to move around the screen very frequently. It’s is very user friendly to let the user drag the object to perform these kinds of actions.
Basically all you have to do in order to handle mouse drags and mouse moves is:
- Create a class that implements
MouseListenerandMouseMotionListenerinterfaces. - Override
mouseClickedto handle mouse clicks,mouseEntered,mouseExitedmethods to check whether your mouse has entered or exited a certain area,mousePressedto monitor the mouse button clicks,mouseReleasedto check when the user releases a mouse button. - Override
mouseDraggedmethod in order to handle mouse drags. Userepaint()method to repaint the object in its new position.
Let’s take a look at the code snippets that follow:
package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.desktop;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.Label;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseMotionListener;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class Sketch extends Component implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener {
int sX = -1, sY = -1;
static Label stat;
Image bImage;
boolean dragging = false;
int curX = -1, curY = -1;
public static void main(String[] av) {
JFrame jFrame = new JFrame("Mouse Dragger");
Container cPane = jFrame.getContentPane();
Image im = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getImage("C:/Users/nikos7/Desktop/pic.jpg");
Sketch sk = new Sketch(im);
cPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
cPane.add(BorderLayout.NORTH, new Label(""));
cPane.add(BorderLayout.CENTER, sk);
cPane.add(BorderLayout.SOUTH, stat = new Label());
stat.setSize(jFrame.getSize().width, stat.getSize().height);
jFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
jFrame.pack();
jFrame.setVisible(true);
}
public Sketch(Image i) {
super();
bImage = i;
setSize(300, 200);
addMouseListener(this);
addMouseMotionListener(this);
}
public void showStatus(String s) {
stat.setText(s);
}
@Override
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent event) {
}
@Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent event) {
}
@Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent event) {
}
@Override
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent event) {
Point point = event.getPoint();
System.out.println("mousePressed at " + point);
sX = point.x;
sY = point.y;
dragging = true;
}
@Override
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent event) {
dragging = false;
System.out.println("Drawn rectangle area IS " + sX + "," + sY + " to "
+ curX + "," + curY);
}
@Override
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent event) {
Point p = event.getPoint();
// System.err.println("mouse drag to " + p);
showStatus("mouse Dragged to " + p);
curX = p.x;
curY = p.y;
if (dragging) {
repaint();
}
}
@Override
public void paint(Graphics graphic) {
int w = curX - sX, h = curY - sY;
Dimension dims = getSize();
graphic.drawImage(bImage, 0, 0, dims.width, dims.height, this);
if (sX < 0 || sY < 0) {
return;
}
System.out.println("Rect[" + sX + "," + sY
+ "] size " + w + "x" + h);
graphic.setColor(Color.red);
graphic.fillRect(sX, sY, w, h);
}
@Override
public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) {
showStatus("Mouse to " + e.getPoint());
}
}
This was an example on how to handle mouse movements and mouse drags in Java.
