The new keyboard binding infrastructure
unifies and replaces the two previously existing schemes
for binding user input (for example, Control-S)
to program actions (for example, saving a file).
The Swing Connection article
Keyboard Bindings in Swing has details
about the old and new keyboard binding schemes,
including example code.
The API changes for the new infrastructure center around
two new classes -- ActionMap and InputMap.
Other changes include
new methods in JComponent, LookAndFeel, and SwingUtilities,
as well as a few new special-purpose classes
that descend from ActionMap and InputMap.