WordPress 3.1 now adds the familiar Admin Bar to your website/weblog. A feature made popular by Tumblr first. WordPress added the Admin Bar a while ago to their web based weblogs and now to self hosted weblogs.

While a handy feature, not everyone is crazy about it. Myself for one, sometimes I can get really irked by any kind of bars on a website. I want the option to hide it or remove it completely. Also, if you manage a WordPress install that has many users you might want to control which users get to see the admin bar or not.

You can disable the admin bar with WordPress native settings:

Even so there are 7 plug-ins available already to completely disable the admin bar, leaving users no option. There are also a couple of plug-ins to give you more control over the admin bar. I have no doubt, knowing the WordPress community, that the amount of plug-ins to modify the admin bar will grow fast. Meanwhile check out the seven plug-ins listed below.

Admin Bar Removal (completely disable) 3.1 only

Admin Bar Removal Completely Disable new Admin Bar Frontend and Backend that now appears on the Public Side and Admin Panel of WordPress 3.1 based blogs, plus Remove Code for minimal memory load.

Global Hide/Remove Admin Bar Plugin

Adds an option to the Settings Menu to globally turn off the Admin Bar and/or turn off the user option in the profile to show admin bar.

Hide Admin Bar Search

Hide Admin Bar Search is a small plugin that hides the search box in the 3.1 admin bar in both the dashboard and front-end site views.

WP Custom Admin Bar

This gives you options to change who sees the Admin Bar based on their user role, change or override the default styling and remove the Admin Bar altogether.

Admin Bar Disabler

This plugin supports both Per-Site and Per-Network (WordPress Multisite) settings, so you can fine tune your options based on your needs.

Stick Admin Bar To Bottom

This plugin sticks the Admin Bar to the bottom of your screen!

Admin Bar Minimiser

Now there is an easy way to minimise the new WordPress 3.1 admin bar at the click of a button!

If you’re a developer that blogs (and you should) or one that develops websites powered by WordPress, chances are you already know about my top three favorite plug-ins. Yes, these are the ones I can’t imagine life without:

ExecPHP

One of my default plug-in installs, ExecPHP allows you to, yes, “execute” PHP from within WordPress. That means that chunks of PHP code will work in your pages, posts and widgets- not just in your templates. I previously used runPHP, but switched after running into some problems with the latter- and I’m glad I did. This one just works for me.

Preserve Code Formatting

Developers know how important it is that the formatting of our code isn’t trifled with. This lovely plug-in makes it so WordPress (or other plug-ins you’ve got installed) can’t modify your code, while retaining your original whitespace and characters. Simply use <pre> and <code> and the plug-in will take care of the rest.

SQL Executioner

A gem of a plug-in that allows you to access your MySQL database from within WordPress- that’s right, without having to fire up phpMyAdmin. Among other things, it performs “select”s and “describe”s, and modifies with “insert”s and “update”s.

What are your favorite WordPress plug-ins?