If you think that your website needs some cool Flash animated buttons or Java based menu and you don’t know how to make that, don’t despair. There are numerous tools out there that can help you accomplish that which require more or less knowledge about Java or Flash programming. One particular tool which is called 1 Cool Button Tool can help you even if you don’t know anything about them. All you have to do is learn how to work with it.

First of all you might encounter some problems while attempting to download this application like we had. The problem was within Mozilla Firefox and expired certificate from downloading website. Adding one exception will do the trick and the download should start. You can also choose whether you want only Flash, Java or dual support. But since it has a really small impact on the download file size our recommendation is to download dual version straight away.

After successful application start you will be presented with an option to use quick wizard or start an empty project. The recommendation is to use this quick wizard for the first time because it really makes things easier for the new comers. The process then takes you through layout selection (vertical or horizontal), number of wanted buttons, button type selection (rendered or image based), button appearance (size, bevel, and color), sounds and animation (where you can set the button appearance for mouse over or down state and choose animation type), and button text and URL input on the end. After that you get to preview your creation within browser or just continue to edit buttons. There you have it. Pretty cool huh? Of course  you can tune up your creation afterwards by manually setting up each of the buttons and related properties and what is more important you get the results for Java and Flash within separated windows which you can copy and paste to your website along with compiled applet or Flash file. That is if you chose the dual option when you have downloaded the application.

Now a little more about manual creation from an empty project. At first you might get a little bit confused because after you start the empty project you will be presented with a panel where you can define all aspects except the number of buttons like in wizard. The things is that you need to add a button first by clicking a small icon in the tool bar. Docking view will give you insight about how your buttons will look on the web page and there is also a grid support so you can easily align your buttons by snapping them to grid points. There are also some predefined templates which you can use to speed things up. The rest of the options is pretty much the same as in wizard tool and distributed across two separate panels.

This little and short application gives you ability to quickly tune up your website with Java or Flash based buttons and menus. If you plan to do this once or twice, free trial version of this application will be pretty much enough for that task. If you plan to use it longer than 21 days than you will have to buy one of offered versions which are separated like the free ones to only Java, only Flash and dual support. Either way it does its job and that is what matters.