This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Sam Dalton. Original Post: Closing Swing Windows with the Escape Key Feed Title: import java.*; Feed URL: http://www.samjdalton.com/pebble/rss.xml Feed Description: Random, Infrequent Bloggings of a Techie Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Sam Dalton Latest Posts From import java.*;

The source of much user frustration with Swing is when windows and dialogs don't act in the way that they expect. Generally, a user expects to be able to press the Escape key to close a dialog window (in Windows). By default Swing JDialogs don't provide this behavior. However, this can easily be implemented by creating a simple subclass of the JDialog class. The code below will equip any subclass with this "close on escape" functionality.

public abstract class EscapableDialog extends JDialog {
	protected JRootPane createRootPane() {
		Action action = new AbstractAction() {
			public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {
				hide();
			}
		};
		KeyStroke stroke = KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ESCAPE, 0);
		JRootPane rootPane = new JRootPane();
		rootPane.getActionMap().put(action,action);
		rootPane.getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_FOCUSED).put(stroke, action);
		return rootPane;
	}

	public EscapableDialog() throws HeadlessException {
		super();
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Dialog arg0) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Dialog arg0, boolean arg1) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Dialog arg0, String arg1) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Dialog arg0, String arg1, boolean arg2)
			throws HeadlessException {
	       super(arg0, arg1, arg2);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Dialog arg0, String arg1, boolean arg2,
			GraphicsConfiguration arg3) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1, arg2, arg3);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Frame arg0) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Frame arg0, boolean arg1) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Frame arg0, String arg1) throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Frame arg0, String arg1, boolean arg2)
			throws HeadlessException {
		super(arg0, arg1, arg2);
	}

	public EscapableDialog(Frame arg0, String arg1, boolean arg2,
			GraphicsConfiguration arg3) {
		super(arg0, arg1, arg2, arg3);
	}