Togle is a simple user-interface component that can make a big impact on your user experience. It’s a common feature on web pages, and it’s also found in many mobile apps.

Definition:

In computing, toggle is a switch that has only two outcomes: A or B, or on or off. It’s used a lot in options menus on desktop and mobile, where users can turn on and off specific settings.

The word toggle comes from the Latin togle, meaning pin. Toggle is also used in hardware, notably for fasteners such as cordlock toggles.

Feature Toggles are a very common part of a team’s codebase and can be a challenging to manage, especially when they’re not managed well. To be truly effective a team needs to have an active strategy for managing the toggle inventory in their codebase.

Removing Toggles That Are No Longer Needed

Savvy teams have a good strategy for removing toggles that are no longer needed. Typically they’re proactive in adding a toggle removal task to their backlog whenever a release toggle is first introduced, or when they see a need to remove a toggle configuration that has been around for more than a week.

Configuring Toggles

In some cases it’s preferable to maintain static toggle configurations, particularly for Ops Toggles which are not likely to change much during a release cycle. In these cases hardcoding can be the best option, but in other situations a more dynamic approach is required.