I have managed to build a work around using CSS.
Made a custom image for the button Icon.
This is what goes in the view/layout page:
<ul class="menu">
<li>
<div id="button_name"><?php
echo $this->Html->image("name_of_img.png", array(
"alt" => "Animal Health",
'url' => array('controller' => 'controllerName', 'action' => 'index')));
?>
<?php echo $this->Html->link(__('Link Text'), array('controller' => 'controllerName', 'action' => 'index')); ?>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
If your not using cakePHP you could do it like this in a normal HTML page:
<ul class="menu">
<li>
<div id="button_name"><a href="/path/to/page.html"><img src="/path/to/img/imagename.png" alt="Animal Health" /></a><a href="/path/to/page.html">Animal Health</a>
</div>
</li>
<ul>
This Makes both the text and the icon clickable.
Then the CSS:
.menu li {padding:0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; list-style: none;
float: left; margin-left: 0px; display: block; height: 36px;} //remove any stlying and set up for the menu.
#button_name{background-color: darkorange;
float: left;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-top: 1px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
padding: 1px 3px 1px 3px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px 5px 0px 0px;
border-radius: 5px 5px 0px 0px;
border: 1px black;
text-align: right;
color: #6495ED;
font-weight: bold;
-webkit-transition: all 1000ms;
-moz-transition: all 1000ms;
-o-transition: all 1000ms;
-ms-transition: all 1000ms;
transition: all 1000ms;}
#button_name a {
-webkit-transition: all 1000ms;
-moz-transition: all 1000ms;
-o-transition: all 1000ms;
-ms-transition: all 1000ms;
transition: all 1000ms;
font-weight: bold;
color: #6495ED;
}
#button_name:hover
{background-color: #6495ED;}
#button_name:hover a // VERY IMPORTANT see note
{
font-weight: bold;
color: darkorange;}
This makes a nice button with 2 rounded top corners. When you hover over the button anywhere the background and text colours transition between each other. ie: text goes from blue to orange and background goes from orange to blue.
Note about #button_name:hover a:
You must set it as specified if you set it as "button_name a:hover" the text will stay the same color as the background.
Hopefully this will help someone else.
Still keen to hear any ideas about doing it with the JS.