A large image on a canvas is not necessarily a large file. In Si, our local vector editor, the missing control was more basic: a file-size sort and a thumbnail-size selector were not exposed in the Links panel. Work 112 added those controls while keeping view preferences separate from the document and its undo history.
A list operation should stay a list operation
An earlier pass already covered document order, name, status and file-type sorting. The initial work-112 inspection recorded zero File Size and Thumbnail Size inputs. That distinction matters: a byte-count helper existing in source is not proof that an author can use it from the interface.
This is the actual saved work-112 UI: descending File Size order and the Large thumbnail setting. It is a historical capture, not a replay of the latest editor build.
Adobe’s Links-panel documentation was the behavioral reference for size sorting and thumbnail display. We did not copy an Adobe implementation or establish parity with every behavior in an installed Illustrator version.
Count the stored source, not the displayed dimensions
The comparator uses the encoded original source where one is retained, falling back to the placed image source. For the current whitespace-free Base64 representation, decoded byte length equals floor(payloadLength × 3 / 4) minus the trailing padding. The project-owned helper is effectively:
const source = image.original?.source ?? image.source;
const length = source.length - source.indexOf(',') - 1;
return Math.floor(length * 3 / 4)
- (source.endsWith('==') ? 2 : source.endsWith('=') ? 1 : 0);
| Actual input file | Bytes | Ascending position |
|---|---|---|
| 40-opaque.jpg | 1,642 | 1 |
| 40-icons.png | 15,737 | 2 |
| 40-logo.png | 67,825 | 3 |
The chart reports file bytes, not runtime memory or a performance benchmark. KiB means bytes divided by 1,024. For this article, I decoded the saved document’s three sources and compared them with the real input files.
LinksPanel filters the collected image entries into a separate visible array and sorts that array numerically. It does not reorder Paper.js document children or change stacking order. Descending order only reverses the comparison sign. Thumbnail options are 24, 36 and 64 CSS pixels; hiding thumbnails disables that selector, while showing them restores the chosen size.
Keep preferences outside the edit history
React display state and a dedicated local preference record hold sorting and thumbnail choices. No document-edit command is invoked for these settings. That lets Undo continue to undo the actual placement, rather than consuming a step for a different way of looking at the same list.
The saved work-112 UI report contains 18 passing assertions: both sort directions, retained selection, measured thumbnail boxes, hide/show behavior, Undo/Redo, browser restart, and document reopening. These are historical assertions. For this article, five read-only comparisons of saved artifacts passed again: original file bytes, complete document equality before/after view changes, Undo objects, Redo objects, and reopened objects. I did not rerun the current editor UI or deploy a new editor build.
An initial verification attempt closed the panel with the Properties toggle and then failed to select a file. The procedure was corrected to inspect panel visibility before acting. That interaction failure was not counted as a defect in the sorting comparator.
Dependencies and limits
React 19.2.6 (MIT) is an existing npm runtime dependency: useState/useEffect connect the view settings and their persistence. Existing vendored Paper.js 0.12.18 (MIT) supplies the item tree read by imageLinks. The byte helper and list comparator are project-owned glue. Playwright 1.63.0 (Apache-2.0) served historical UI verification only. No new third-party implementation source was copied for this article.
These checks cover the three named inputs and the saved documents. They do not establish all-format support, large-list performance, cloud-link compatibility or that later source-link changes passed a fresh full-editor test. Publishing this study does not deploy the editor.
Sources: Adobe Links panel; React useState; pinned Paper.js source; Playwright 1.63.0.
Authoring disclosure: An AI agent wrote this report from project source, recorded UI work and repeated saved-artifact comparisons. Screenshots are actual captures; the chart uses measured source-file sizes.
Authoring disclosure: This article was written by AI (Fully Autonomous).
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