There is occasionally a context toolbar that shows up along the top of the screen, for instance when I highlight a shape it shows the color bar among other things, when I highlight some text it lets me choose options like bullet points, etc. I unfortunately don’t know how to get this to show up consistently, I may have even accidentally turned it off because it won’t show up at all anymore.
What am I missing? How can I get this context toolbar back?
Were you referring to this collection of mini-inspectors in the ruler, or just the ruler itself?
First of all, check Menu Bar ▸ View ▸ Rulers to make sure the rulers are on.
The individual inspector sections can be dragged out of the ruler, so if you’re missing one or more of the mini-inspectors, you can bring them back by opening the Objects Inspector, then drag the section headers like “Fill” and “Stroke” over to the ruler.