Anyone who’s had a WordPress lesson from me has heard about the kitchen sink. It’s an icon on your post/page editor that controls the visibility of the second row of editing icons.
Back in 2008 the second row of icons was added to WordPress. However to see it took some work! Here’s a quote from one of my 2008 blog posts on the subject.
If you’re on WordPress 2.1 or above log into WordPress and write or manage a post or page. Put your cursor in the text area. That’s where the words of your post or page appear. Simultaneously press the Alt-Shift-V keys.
Once you went through all of that here’s what you saw. Note that at this point there’s no kitchen sink. There’s just the obvious need for a different way to see that second row of controls.
The kitchen sink came into being with WordPress 2.5. It eliminated the series of key strokes needed to make the bottom row of icons appear or disappear. You just clicked on the kitchen sink icon and you were done. By the way, I always thought it looked kind of like an artist’s color palette and not a sink.
Recently I was giving a client a WordPress lesson and telling her about the kitchen sink. Imagine my surprise when I hovered over the icon and saw “Toolbar Toggle”. Really?
Yep, it’s true. The kitchen sink has a cool new look and a name to match. It’s now the toolbar toggle. While the new name makes a lot of sense, I feel a little nostalgic about the good ol’ kitchen sink.
Why You Need to Know About the Toolbar Toggle
The toolbar toggle is one of those things that’s handy and easy once you know about it. That’s why I mention it to my clients.
What if the second row of icons suddenly disappears? You must have clicked it accidentally. Click the toggle again to make the icons reappear. What if the second row of icons has never been there? Go ahead and click that button. I bet your problem will be solved.
