Contextual Task Bars Now in Photoshop (Beta)

The CTB stays pinned between documents and restarts on the new Ps 2024/v25.0 release on MacOS 12.6.9. Hope it's the same for everyone else.

I find the floating of the Contextual Task Bar very convenient. However, there are some very common scenarios where I have to drag it away manually. With the following improvements, I think I wouldn't have to, and would make working all-in-all more intuitive.

1. Hide inactive Contextual Task Bar during keydown of any modifier key. 

Benefits & reasoning:

- The floating bar follows your selection, but often times you want to add to/reduce from  the initial selection you just made, and often times in these situations the bar gets in the way. It would be rather convenient if the modifier keys used to change the +/- mode of the selection tools would already hide the bar.

- The floating bar remains below Generative Fill layer after generation. Hiding it during keydown would be a super easy way to see the bigger picture after you have just generated something. Especially if you are working on the top part of an image, the bar is often blocking your view of how the generation blends into its surroundings. Furthermore, this gives user the ability to use their preferred key from multiple choices (all modifier keys) for this purpose.

2. Change float alignment of Contextual Task Bar according to selection/Generative Fill layer XY position(especially Y). Basically I mean the center of the image would be the bar's anchor point, and it would always be on the opposite side of your selection/Generative Fill layer/etc from the anchor point, especially if working anywhere near edges. I'm sure this has crossed your minds at designing the tool already tho – maybe make it a preference setting?

Benefits & reasoning:

- when working on the top half, top third or top quarter of the image, I find it would make more sense that the alignment of the floating bar would jump above of my "area of focus", instead of sticking below it, since I want to see as much of the bigger picture at all times as possible.

- Perhaps some relative position shifting on X-axis in similar fashion would make sense. You want the bar in a usable position but at the same time as far away from your "area of focus" as possible.

For me, in the latest beta update the bar now stays on the last pinned position even after quiting Photoshop instead of jumping back to a default position.  This happens only in Photoshop Beta 25.0.0. In Photoshop 24.7.0 the bar still jumps to its default position after quiting Photoshop. (Mac M1)

On the generative fill one would like the option to flick layer visability on and off, so you can see which parts are original and which parts are AI generated.

I would love it if the new Contextual Bar could remember that I pinned it to a specific location across restarts, but that's just a small fix to the larger problem of it should be either its own Panel, or part of the Properties Panel, which is also contextual.

AND, the bar constantly "blinks". Still. After several updates the bar stopped blinking, but in the last two updates it is back to constantly blinking. Turning off Native Canvas in Technology Preview prefs does not solve the problem.

While I really like the Generative Fill function, the tool bar is driving me nuts.  I pin the tool bar where I want it, and then next time I open Photoshop again, it is right in the middle of my work screen again.  Please make the "Pin bar position" sticky so that it is where I want it next time. Let me dock it where I want it.

The fact the taskbar is not dockable but you can only pin it is annoying. For myself i created a keyboard shortcut to view/hide the taskbar. It makes it a bit more workable. I use CMD+B (B for bar) it overwrites the shortcut for colorbalance, but i did not use that shortcut anyway.

Just another voice advocating for making the contextual bar either dockable to the top or bottom of the screen, or at least persistent in remembering where it's pinned. I get that the concept is that it pops up where you're working, but in my personal workflow, it feels aggressively hostile in blocking what I need to see and do every time I restart the app. I like and frequently use the bar, especially for generative fill tasks, but keep turning it off altogether because it gets in the way so much.

I am OK with having the contextual Task Bar, but it is really annoying that it goes back to the default position which is a terrible place for it each time I reopen Photoshop.  Make the pinned location be sticky and not change each time I shut down!

I'd like the possibility to edit what appears in the contextual task bar. For example, I often do compositions and the "Import image" command would be very useful even AFTER you start layering stuff in a new document. Do you plan on implementing this feature?