Keylistener not working when screen is constantly refreshed

[evared]

Well basically i am making a game, and in this game you obviously need a keyboard input as you do every other game. To test the initial keyboard input and check everything is working in that respect i have the escape button setup to call System.exit(). This works fine on all of the menu's, but when i start the actual game, load the maps etc, it doesn't call at all. I have looked over and revised a lot of code, but there are actually no changes to anything wen moving from the menu's to game. When you click a button and it takes you to another menu, it calls a method called wipe(boolean,boolean), the boo's decide whether to remove the background image and logo. At the top of the wipe method, all of the buttons are removed to make way for the new buttons.

When the game is initiated, a method called gameLoop() is called which then checks what to display on the screen updates sprites etc. But when this method is called the Keyboard is completely non responsive. I have tried using keymaps, changing the focusable boolean of every component and even changing what component is painted on the screen, e.g. getFullScreenWindow() in graphics environment, and the actual JFrame, and JPanel's. Nothing seems to change this.

public void gameLoop(){
		long a = 0;
		long ttlTime = 0;
		long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		long currTime = startTime;
		int m1 = 1;
		int m2 = 1;
		int m3 = 1;
		int m4 = 1;
		int m5 = 1;
		int m6 = 1;
		int m7 = 1;
		int m8 = 1;
		int m9 = 1;
		int m10 = 1;
		int m11 = 1;
		int m12 = 1;
		int m13 = 1;
		int m14 = 1;
		int m15 = 1;
		int m16 = 1;
		int m17 = 1;
		int m18 = 1;
		while(getGameMode() == GameMode.SINGLE_PLAYER_IN_GAME){

			long elapsedTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime;
			currTime += elapsedTime;
			
			updateAnimations(elapsedTime);
           	getCurrentMap().centerScreenToPlayer(this,getCurrentPlayer());
			
            this.displayCurrentMapGraphics();
			
			
			sleep(5);
			
			ttlTime += elapsedTime;
			
			if(ttlTime >= 20000){
			    System.exit(1);
			}
			double mt = (m1+m2+m3+m4+m5+m6+m7+m8+m9+m10+m11+m12+m13+m14+m15+m16+m17+m18)/18;
	                m2 = m1;
			m3 = m2;
			m4 = m3;
			m5 = m4;
			m6 = m5;
			m7 = m6;
			m8 = m7;
			m9 = m8;
			m10 = m9;
			m11 = m10;
			m12 = m11;
			m13 = m12;
			m14 = m13;
			m15 = m14;
			m16 = m15;
			m17 = m16;
			m18 = m17;
			m1 = (int) elapsedTime;
			this.runtime += elapsedTime;
			if(a < 1000){
				a += elapsedTime;
			}else{
				this.fps = (int) (1000/mt);
				a = 0;
			}
		}
		
	}

The game engine is very far along, but i cant get past this.

If anyone would like to see any code, just request it and i would be more than happy to put it in this top part. Any help would be VERY appreciated, cheers, Paul.

[Fubarable]

You're likely locking up the Swing event thread with this loop if it is being called on the thread. Since this thread is responsible for all Swing graphics and user interaction, tying it up will effectively freeze your application. Are you taking care to use background threading? Should you instead use a Swing Timer? Or a SwingWorker object?

[evared]

So use a Swing Timer or Worker, to update the screen instead of my own loop? That should work, thanks :)

[evared]

Well i implemented a new class that handles the game loop using a timer. i basically implemented the loop but in another class using ActionEvents etc. This caused a massive problem. The screen was flashing white, the menu's weren't going and were being displayed in the background when the actual game was running, and worst of all, the keyboard still didn't work :(
I also forgot to say before that the current script i use, runs very smoothly, at around 60fps, the most I've got out of it is around 75fps.

[Fubarable]

I'd say that something is not working right, that you've implemented your Timer wrong.

If you need better help, consider giving more information and showing code with code tags.