How to detect single clicks to System TrayIcon for Java App?

Question

I'm working on a simple Java swing app, which adds an icon to the system tray when created. What I'm trying to do is to detect when this icon is single clicked by the user (whether through left click or right click), There's no popup menu, I just want the app to be restored when the icon is clicked.

This is the code I'm using:

    SystemTray tray = SystemTray.getSystemTray(); 
    Image icon = toolkit.getImage("icon.png");

    ActionListener listener = new ActionListener()
    {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
        {
            System.out.println("click detected");
        }
    };

    TrayIcon trayIcon = new TrayIcon(icon, "Test Program", null);
    trayIcon.addActionListener(listener);
    tray.add(trayIcon);

What happens when I run this program though, is that single clicks (either left or right) have no effect, but when I double click, then it shows the message 'click detected' in the console.

What can I do to have single clicks also be detected? Do I need to use a MouseListener for this? ( I've heard that MouseListeners can cause problems, and ActionListeners are better)

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited May 10 '18 at 16:21

16

You could use MouseListener, ie:

trayIcon.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
    public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
        if (e.getClickCount() == 1) {

        }
    }
});

See How to Write a Mouse Listener for more details.

EDIT: ActionListener vs MouseListener

There is a concept of low level and semantic events. Whenever possible, you should listen for semantic events rather than low-level events, such as listening for action events, rather than mouse events. Read for more details in Low-Level Events and Semantic Events.

In this case you just need more details from the event so using MouseListener is required.

edited May 10 '18 at 16:21

Pablo Fernandez

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answered Sep 05 '12 at 04:18

tenorsax

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may also want to check if e.getID() == MouseEvent.MOUSE_CLICKED unless you want to respond to just the "mouse down" notification (which you might...) – rogerdpack Dec 19 '12 at 06:46
@rogerdpack [mouseClicked](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/event/MouseListener.html#mouseClicked%28java.awt.event.MouseEvent%29) is invoked when the mouse button has been clicked (pressed and released) on a component. – tenorsax Dec 19 '12 at 23:56
ahh I was adding a mouse listener which reported all of them, ok thanks for clearing thatup. – rogerdpack Dec 20 '12 at 15:09
In this example, `icon` is an `Image`, right? I cannot get compiler to accept `.addMouseListener()` on an `Image`. – The111 Jan 21 '13 at 21:34
@The111 it is `TrayIcon` actually, see OP code. [Image](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Image.html) has no `addMouseListener()` method. Add the listener to the `Component` that paints the image. – tenorsax Jan 22 '13 at 00:11
Ok, I see now, but you still have a typo I think you might want to fix. In the OP, `icon` is an `Image` as I pointed out. The instance of `TrayIcon` is named `trayIcon`. Thanks. – The111 Jan 22 '13 at 00:20

How to detect single clicks to System TrayIcon for Java App?

1 Answers1