You may have noticed a gray bar that appears at the top of your pages when logged into your website. This gray bar is called the Admin Bar and it is an easy-to-access toolbar with shortcuts to many WordPress features.
The drop-down menu that appears when you hover over the WordPress logo is a quick way to access many of the support features for WordPress.
The Website Menu, located next to the WordPress logo on the left-hand side of your Admin Bar, has two different appearances. One for when you’re at the front end of your website, and one when you are on your Admin Screens.
- When you are on your WordPress Admin Screens, this menu will take you to the front end of your website. The menu item will have the name of your website.
- When you are on the front end of your website you’ll have access to lots of your WordPress tools for customizing the look of your website. These are:
Dashboard – takes you to the WordPress Dashboard
Themes – takes you to the Themes Admin Screen, for installing new Themes
Customize– takes you to the Theme Customizer
Widgets – takes you to the Widgets Admin Screen
Menus – takes you to the Menus Admin Screen (if that functionality is available in your theme)
Background – add a custom background (if that functionality is available in your theme)
Header – change your Theme header (if that functionality is available in your theme)
If updates are available to you, the update icon will appear, telling you how many. If you’ve got updates available make sure you click update! Keeping WordPress, your plugins and your themes updated, is an important step in keeping WordPress secure.
The next menu will tell you how many comments you have pending moderation. Click it to go to your Comments Admin Screen.
To the right of the Admin Bar you’ll see a menu that says “Howdy, (your username)”. Hovering over this will let you update your user profile and log out of WordPress.