Catching KeyEvents from all components

Question

I have a JFrame in which I have several JTextFields.
I want to catch the event of pressing the Control key from anywhere
in the program.
So I tried to add a KeyListener to the frame like this:
frame.addKeyListener(new KeyAdapter() {
     @Override
     public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
          if (e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL) {
               System.out.println("Control was pressed");
});The problem is that if the focus is on one of the text fields then
the frame won't get the event.
How can I solve this?
I don't want to add a key listener to each of my components on the frame.

Answer 1

This will do what you want. Its a cut and paste from some of my old stuff with some specifics removed. Should be enough to get you going and looking in the right direction.
Get back to me if not.
Nes
KeyboardFocusManager.getCurrentKeyboardFocusManager().addKeyEventDispatcher(new KeyEventDispatcher()
             * dispatchKeyEvent(KeyEvent event)
             * We add ourself as a KeyEvent Dispatcher to the DefaultKeyboardFocusManager
             * class.
             * @param event
            public boolean dispatchKeyEvent(KeyEvent event) {
              Component component = event.getComponent();
                      //focus changes made by SUN sometimes allow the focus owner to
                      //be null even when a component is selected.  If this is the case then
                      //the keyboard events don't get fired correctly, so we check the
                      //focus owner and if it is null we set it to be one of our member
                      //components and hey presto it all falls into place
// I HAVE REMOVED THE ABOVE WORKAROUND FOR THE POINT OF THIS MAIL
if(KeyboardFocusManager.getCurrentKeyboardFocusManager().getFocusOwner() != null)
                      switch (event.getKeyCode())
                        //Pick up on the Control Key
                        case KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL:
                            if(event.getID() == KeyEvent.KEY_RELEASED)
                                try
                                    System.out.println("Control was pressed");
                                catch (Exception ex)
                                    ex.printStackTrace();
                                event.consume();
                                return true;
                        default:
                              return false;
    }