The most important factor that determines the size of the menu is the content of the items. If you want to reduce the size of your menu you should keep in mind that the menu must have at least the necessary size for the content of the items to fit inside. If the content is large, then you should first of all reduce the size of the content.
The properties that determine the size of each item and the menu are the <Minimum Width>in the Main/Sub/Sub+ Group Style Editor (if you want to increase the size, perhaps this is the only property you should change), the <Size> in the Main/Sub/Sub+Items Style Editor and also the <Text Margin> and the <Content Padding> in the Main/Sub/Sub+ Items Style Editor.
1. How to specify the <Minimum Width> property of a group.
2. How to speicfy the <Size> property of the items of your menu.
3. How to specify the <Text Margin> property of the items of your menu.
4. How to specify the <Content Padding> property of the items of your menu.
Also you can check/uncheck the "Uniform Items" option in the <Type> property of the Main/Sub/Sub+ Group Style Editor that forces all items to have the same size - the size of the largest item. You can modify the values of these properties and change the size of the items.
5. How to specify the "Uniform Items" option of a group.
Finally, If you just want to widen the menu, you have only to change the <Minimum Width> property of the Main Group Style in the Style Editor.
When you build a menu in AllWebMenus Pro application, you apply a theme to this (usually the default one).
1. How to apply a built-in Theme in your menu.
The Themes that do not contain images and are text and color based can of course be customized by the application; you just need to edit the <Background Color> property (and perhaps any other property that involves colors) in all the Available Styles of the Style Editor (i.e. Main Group Style, Main Items Style, etc...).
2. How to change the Background Color property.
The Themes that do contain images cannot be customized color-wise within the AllWebMenus Pro. You can however customize the images that the menu is using (you can find these images in the NameOfThemes-assets folder which resides in the Theme Gallery\Vertical or Theme Gallery\Horizontal folder under the installation folder of your AllWebMenus Pro application (i.e. C:\Program Files\AllWebMenus5\Theme Gallery). Open the images with your favorite image editor and change their color, save them (it is recommended to keep backup files of the default Theme Packs of AllWebMenus Pro) and use them in your menus!
Of course you can also create your own images from scratch, according to the needs of your website and use them in the application to create your own menus - even your own Themes. You can find all the appropriate information about how to use your own images in your menu through your AllWebMenus Pro application to Help -> What is... -> The Image Manager.
In addition to the built-in Themes of the program, you can also purchase from the various Theme Packs that we have created. You can have a look at the Theme Packs here: http://www.likno.com/awmthemes.php. You might also be interested in the Templates we have also created and contrary to themes, menu templates are complete .awm projects with special images, features and content that cannot be themed but provide added functionality: http://www.likno.com/awmtemplates.php.
A lot of customers that are using the Sliding Menus add-in of AllWebMenus Pro, define their DHTML menus in such a way where the menu system can remember their expanded/collapsed state, when browsing through different pages. For example, when they expand a menu's item, the expanded menu keeps this state after navigating to a different page.
The Sliding Menus add-in of AllWebMenus Pro can easily implement this functionality. You just have to go to the "Style Editor" of your DHTML menu maker and choose the "Sub Groups Style" (or in the "Sub Groups Style+" if you want this functionality to be applied in the menu items that belong to a level greater than two) from the "Available Styles". Afterwards, you have to click on the "Type" property and check the "Remember the menu state..." option as shown in the image below:
If you want this setting not to be applied globally (i.e. you want your menu system to remember the expanded/collapsed state for some of your menu items and not for all), you must use the "Menu Editor" and not the "Style Editor". Then you have to choose each item you want to have this behavior, click on the "All Values" button and define its "Type" property as shown above.
This occurs because the "Text Margin" property applies only to the beginning and end of the content. To be more specific, the left margin will be applied to the left of the first text line and the right margin to the right of the last text line.
Therefore when you are using an item that has text with multiple lines and you need to define space around the entire text, you need to use the "Content Padding" property of the "Main Items Style" in the "Style Editor" of your AllWebMenus Pro application and not the "Text Margin" property. See the image below:
