Faking Drag&Drop operation to external application

Question

Hello,
a rather complicated issue. in my program i have a JTable, and i can drag&drop from this jtable
to external programs like windows explorer by clicking the mouse and moving it from the table
to the external program.
how can i reproduce this exact behaviour WITHOUT user intervention?
in other words, how can i do this programmatically, creating a drop source at the start point,
then move the mouse, and release it above a specified location on the screen?
is this even possible in java (as we're running in a VM) ?

Answer 1

it has it's problems.
for example, if the drop point is above the source point, moving the mouse with the robot sometimes marks all entries in the table instead of performing a drag&drop operation. also, it seems that without a delay between the moves, strange things happen. so here is an updated version which workes 99% flawlessly for me.
package trakker;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.event.InputEvent;
import java.util.logging.Level;
* this thread fakes a drag & drop operation to the traktor decks
public class LoadDeckThread implements Runnable
     Point source;          // where was the mouse pointer before operation?
     Point track;          // where is the point of the track in the jlist?
     Point target;          // where do we move the track to?
     // constructor
     public LoadDeckThread(Point pTrack, Point pSource, Point pMoveTo)
          track = pTrack;
          source = pSource;
          target = pMoveTo;
     // thread run
     public void run()
          try
               // create a new robot
               Robot robot = new Robot();
               robot.setAutoDelay(100);
               // move the mouse to the track in the jlist
               robot.mouseMove(track.x, track.y);
               // click and hold
               robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
               robot.waitForIdle();
               // move to the left to prevent list scrolling
               robot.mouseMove(50, target.y);
               // and to the topleft of our app
               Point p = Util.mainWnd.getLocation();
               robot.mouseMove(p.x, p.y);
               // move the mouse to the specified deck
               robot.mouseMove(target.x, target.y);
               // wait some time (otherwise it doesn't work?)
               //robot.delay(500);
               robot.waitForIdle();
               // release the mouse
               robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
               robot.waitForIdle();
               // move back to the track
               robot.mouseMove(track.x, track.y);
               robot.waitForIdle();
               robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
               robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
               // now move back where we were
               robot.mouseMove(source.x, source.y);
               robot.waitForIdle();
               robot = null;
          catch(Exception ex)
               Util.log("Cannot invoke robot for drag&drop: " + ex.getMessage(), Level.SEVERE);
} instead of to close tags ;=)