Since AllWebMenus v5.1.764, your menus can use 3 different styles for their groups and 3 different styles for their items:
•••• Main Group Style ••••
(initially assigned to the Main Menu Group, i.e. 1st level group)
•••• Main Items Style ••••
(initially assigned to the items of the Main Menu Group, i.e. 1st level items)
•••• Sub Groups Style ••••
(initially assigned to the 1st submenus stemming from the Main Menu items, i.e. 2nd level groups)
•••• Sub Items Style ••••
(initially assigned to the 1st submenu items contained in the above submenus, i.e. 2nd level items)
•••• Sub Groups Style+ ••••
(initially assigned to the rest of submenus stemming from the above items, i.e. 3rd level groups and beyond)
•••• Sub Items Style+ ••••
(initially assigned to the rest of submenu items contained in the above submenus, i.e. 3rd level items and beyond)
This is how a menu would look if the <Background Color> and <Border> on every item or group had the above colors that demonstrate the initial style assignments:
Note: The above assignments are the initial ones. If you wish, you can later change the assignments as wish.
Why is the 3rd style (i.e. "Style+") useful?
1. You can use themes that have different appearance on 3rd-level submenus and beyond:
Themes that use this technique: Juice, Fading Purple, FlatSky, Orange Bubbles (free, contained in your AllWebMenus by default)
You may also find extra themes using this technique from Theme Pack 36 and above at: http://www.likno.com/awmthemes.php
For example, at theme "Olive Plastic" (Theme Pack 36), its 3rd-level items (and beyond) use less padding than its 2nd-level items:
At the SlideTreeXP sliding menu theme (Theme Pack 38, "Sliding Menu Add-in" required), the 3rd-level items do not use an icon, while the 2nd-level items do:
Such arrangements would not have been possible if all submenus had the same style.
2. You can apply very interesting behaviors to sliding menus (available through the extra "Sliding Menu Add-in"), that combine both "sliding" and "non-sliding" cascading submenus!
For example, the SlideSummer sliding menu theme below (Theme Pack 37, "Sliding Menu Add-in" required)) uses a sliding submenu for all its Main Menu items, while the rest of its submenus are the standard non-sliding ones. Such "sliding/non-sliding" menu combinations are very suitable in many website layouts and would not have been possible if all submenus had the same style.
3. The 3rd-level submenus can differ from the 2nd-level submenus by only a small but very important detail, that allows for a different design if the parent group is horizontal or vertical.
At the following examples the 2nd-level submenu does not have a "Header" (its <Has Header> property is set to "No"), while the 3rd-level submenu (and beyond) needs to have a "Header" so that the design closes properly at top:
At the following sliding menu themes (Theme Pack 38, "Sliding Menu Add-in" required) the 2nd-level submenus are different than the 3rd-level submenus, either in colors, images or indentation:
Different colors & indentation:
Different icons & indentation: