KeyListener problems

Question

I'm making a simple Packman game as an Applet.
To control the my pacmans I would like to use the keybord, but I'm having trouble getting my events through to the right receiver. The trouble is I'm not sending my events to a component in the applet class but directly to the class implementing the Pacmans.
Could this be some kind of Focusproblem??
Any ideas anyone??
My pacmanclass goes as follows(abbreviated):
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Pacman extends Brikke implements KeyListener{
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
     //no action
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
     //kode goes here, doesn't react     
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
     //no action
}

Answer 1

Howdy. I was grappling with a similar problem not long ago and managed to work it out..
The Component that has the focus will receive the Keystrokes.
By default, the root Container of your program will have the focus, ie. all initial keystrokes that you enter will go to your Frame/Applet object or whatever.
Component has a method : requestFocus() .. which moves the focus to that particular Component and hence, it eats up all the Keystrokes. Check that function out.
.. now not knowing the structure of your program exactly, I can suggest a couple of arbitrary methods of keeping the keyfocus on your Pacman object.
1. You can add a Focus Listener object to the root Container, that calls the requestFocus() method of the Pacman object as soon as it receives the focus itself. This would result in your root container never owning the Focus itself, as it would always pass focus onto the Pacman object as soon as it acquired focus itself.
2. You could implement the KeyListener interface object into the Pacman object, which would turn the Pacman object into both the equivalent of a Component and a KeyListener object. That means, you can add the Pacman object as a KeyListener into the root Container using the addKeyListener(KeyListener object) method. This would result in the root Container keeping focus, but all keystrokes being passed to the Pacman object.
Hope that made sense.