Keyboard character repeat delay

Question

I have JDK 5 Update 4. Does anybody have an idea on how to access the keyboard character repeat delay and repeat rate?
I want to shorten the delay and possibly the repeat rate. Is there a way to get the keyboard and it's properties somehow?

Answer 1

lol I delt with the same issue while making a galaxian clone.
I wanted to completely get rid of the delay and make the repeat rate equal to as fast as java could execute it (meaning assume that it repeats every single time the paint() method gets executed).
for instance, if I want the ship to move left and keep moving left (meaning no delay and incredibly fast repeat rate), I did this:
inside my KeyListener I have boolean Left. inside keyPressed, I have a switch statement that, if the left key is pressed, sets Left to true. inside my paint() method, I check to see if myKeyListener.Left == true. if it does, I move my ship to the left. inside of keyReleased I have a switch that sets Left to false. therefore, there is no delay at all between the key being pressed and the ship moving, and so long as you hold the key down, the ship keeps moving over at a constant rate that has absolutely nothing to do with the repeat rate of the KeyListener. hacking into the OS is way unnecessary.
if you want there to be a significant delay (the way my firing of bullets does), then do this
//inside the constructor of your GUI, set long milliSec to System.currentTimeMillis().
if (MyKeyListener.SpaceBarIsPressed == true && System.currentTimeMillis() >= 500+milliSec)
     //the code necessary to shoot a bullet
     milliSec = System.currentTimeMillis()
}that will make it so the next bullet cannot be fired until its been at least 500 milliseconds since the last bullet was fired. giving you a constant repeat rate with no start delay.