Capturing system-wide key events

Question

I am writing a pseudo-wordprocessor, and have a StatusBar class that is (supposed) to show the user their status... e.g. whether Insert or Caps Lock are enabled. To do that, I obviously need to check whether those keys are pressed.
However, I don't know exactly how to perform such a check. I assume it has something to do with a system-wide KeyListener, but how would I implement that?

Answer 1

see this code
I hope i've understand you!!!
bye,
leo
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class CaputreKey extends JFrame {
JLabel txt = new JLabel();
public CaputreKey() {
txt.setBounds(10, 20, 100, 100);
this.setBounds(10, 10, 300, 300);
this.getContentPane().setLayout(null);
this.addKeyListener(new java.awt.event.KeyAdapter() {
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
all_keyPressed(e);
this.getContentPane().add(txt, null);
public void all_keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
if (e.getKeyCode() == e.VK_CAPS_LOCK)
txt.setText("CAPS");
else if (e.getKeyCode() == e.VK_INSERT)
txt.setText("INSERT");
else
txt.setText("OTHER");
public static void main(String[] args) {
CaputreKey caputreKey1 = new CaputreKey();
caputreKey1.show();
}