A small, universally applicable PictureButton with the following features: Written in "pure Java 1.0" and thus available on all Java enabled browsers. The class file is less than 8 kByte. The following three states "normal," "mouse over the button" and "mouse over the button pressed" can be displayed. Interapplet communication is supported. The button can be provided with a sensitive area. Links can be loaded with a time delay. Protected sound output on all operating systems. Many thanks to Sascha Hillmer, who painted the marvelous buttons and bells.

The description of the applet parameters illustrated by an example. An interesting example of interapplet communication show this traffic light modifying a childrens rhyme on a blackboard. And finally some nice bells.

You can select here between two versions: The file PictureButton.zip (8 kByte) contains the Java class PictureButton and the source code. The file PictureButton-en.zip (126 kByte) contains the pages listet in chapter "See also" and includes all required resources.

Bad news: The sound support for Microsoft Windows 95/98 is incorrect. If an audio clip is played between one thousand and two thousand times with Java, the operating system crashed with an error in the system library "mmsystem." This error occurs with all browsers under Microsoft Windows 95/98. At Suns Developer Connection a bug report exists - bug Id 4072950 - , however a fix for this problem is not yet available. Perhaps someone has an idea... Good news: The PictureButton can intercept this error, by interrogating the operating system and simply playing no sound under Microsoft Windows 95/98. You can find further information about this problem in the section "MouseDownSound." Please remember that in all examples presented here the sound support is activated for Windows 95/98. If you are using one of these operating systems, then please don't click too often.

This applet may be used for private and commercial purposes freely, on condition that a reference to the author or a link to this page is included. Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Rüdiger Appel, all rights reserved.