Knowing whether the user is pressing the Shift key

Question

How can I tell whether the Shift key is currently pressed?
I don't need to know when it's pressed. Instead, at an arbitrary point, i want to know whether the Shift key is pressed.
Thanks,
Eli

Answer 1

Try the following code:
import java.awt.AWTEvent;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.AWTEventListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class ShiftTest implements AWTEventListener {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
     SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
         @Override
         public void run() {
          new ShiftTest().createGUI();
    private boolean shiftPressed = false;
    public ShiftTest() {
     Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().addAWTEventListener(this,
          AWTEvent.KEY_EVENT_MASK);
    @Override
    public void eventDispatched(AWTEvent event) {
     if (event.getID() == KeyEvent.KEY_PRESSED) {
         if (KeyEvent.VK_SHIFT == ((KeyEvent) event).getKeyCode()) {
          shiftPressed = true;
     } else if (event.getID() == KeyEvent.KEY_RELEASED) {
         if (KeyEvent.VK_SHIFT == ((KeyEvent) event).getKeyCode()) {
          shiftPressed = false;
    public boolean isShiftPressed() {
     return shiftPressed;
    private void createGUI() {
     JFrame frame = new JFrame();
     frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
     final JLabel label = new JLabel("Message area", JLabel.CENTER);
     frame.add(label, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
     frame.add(new JButton(new AbstractAction("Test shift pressed") {
         private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
         @Override
         public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
          label.setText("Shift " + isShiftPressed());
     }), BorderLayout.CENTER);
     frame.pack();
     frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
     frame.setVisible(true);
}Piet