One of the new features in WordPress 3.1 is the admin bar. While this feature is useful to many users (mostly multi-site users) but for some users (mostly buddypress users) it can be annoying.

For those who do not want the admin bar

You have two choices to disable the admin bar:

1. Disabling admin bar from individual user preferences
   Users can edit their profile preferences from Users → Your Profile. Uncheck “when viewing site” under “Show Admin Bar”
2. Disabling admin bar for all users.
   You can either write the below code in your theme’s functions.php or create a php file with the code and save it in /wp-content/mu-plugins/ directory.
   add_filter( 'show_admin_bar', '__return_false' );

 

For those who want the admin bar but don’t see it

If you cannot see admin bar in your theme, it is probably due to your theme missing the wp_footer() call in footer.php file.

Add wp_footer(); above the </body> tag in footer.php

Whether you enable or disable the admin bar, there will be no change in functionality. The purpose of the admin bar is only for facilitating better accessibility between admin and front-end.