A toggle is a small piece of wood or plastic that’s sewn to something like a coat or bag and pushed through a loop or hole to fasten it. It’s also a common feature in everyday technology, such as phones or computers, and is used to switch between two functions. In computers, for example, you can use a toggle to turn on or off features such as Bluetooth(r) or WiFi(r). You can even toggle the sound in an application.
Toggles are also a popular feature of some websites that help you create a more personalized browsing experience. For instance, some sites allow you to select your preferred fonts or color schemes, while others let you customize the layout of pages so that you can fit more content on the screen. You can also toggle a site’s search function on or off, which allows you to find specific types of content more easily.
Using toggles can make it easier to test and evaluate the effects of changes you’re making to your software without rolling out the change to all users. This can help you find the best way to design your product and improve its functionality and usability. You can also find out if you’re introducing new features that your customers will enjoy.
In terms of software development, Feature Toggles are useful for performing continuous integration, enabling trunk-based development for teams practicing Continuous Delivery, and running multivariate or A/B testing. They also help you hide features that aren’t ready for production use until they’re ready for release, market testing, or a similar stage in the process. You can then send automatic PRs to remove the toggle once the feature is no longer in use.
Another important consideration when managing toggle configuration is how you handle the re-configuration of individual service instances. Some platforms manage the configuration via static files which are easy to modify at a low level but can become cumbersome if you’re scaling up. This is why many organizations choose to move their toggle configuration into a centralized store, often an existing application DB, and build-out some type of admin UI that allows developers, testers, and product managers to view and modify the toggles.
Another thing to keep in mind when designing a website with toggles is that they should only be activated by clicking on the button. This is to prevent accidental or unintentional activation, which can lead to a loss of user data or an unintentional change to the software system. In addition, it’s a good idea to name the toggles clearly so that anyone who sees them will know what they mean, where they came from, and what effect they can have.
