Plot gallery and source links
Find plots, insert them at their intended size, and keep their sources current.
Getting plots in
Browse the gallery
Alt+G opens the Plot gallery, showing SVG and PNG previews in the current folder, including GLB meshes marked 3D. Choose Gallery or List, and adjust Size, Space and Names to make the contact sheet comfortable; Size reaches 800 px for large previews. Flux remembers these display choices.
Folders shows or collapses a directory tree. Clicking a folder shows what is in it, and the › arrow beside it expands or collapses its branches, so you can browse files without losing your picks. The Folder click behavior setting in Settings → Figure can make the click do both. The root button (plots or plot_library) returns to the top, and Up or Backspace goes to the parent folder.
◆ marks semantic plots and ◇ marks plain images; List also shows semantic and paper-snip badges. In Slides, the gallery also previews MP4/MOV clips: select Play video to play, pause, seek, or mute a clip in the full-window view (see 3D and video in slides).
Project and global plots
Project / Global at the top of the gallery (Alt+1 / Alt+2) switches between this project’s plots/ folder and your global plot library, the plot_library folder inside your FluxConfig folder (by default ~/FluxConfig/plot_library). Picks from both scopes can go in together.
Put plots you reuse everywhere in the global library, such as logos, schematics, reference panels and colour keys. Organise it with any folders you like, as you would a project’s plots/; Flux creates the folder the first time you open Global, and Open folder takes you there. The project keeps its own copy of every plot you insert, and a global plot stays linked to its file in the library, so regenerating it there updates it here on this machine. The global library holds SVG, PNG and GLB plots; video clips live in a project’s plots/_videos/.
Search, select and insert
By default, search reaches ordinary folders throughout the tree you are browsing. The Plot gallery search scope setting in Settings → Figure can widen or narrow that: everything in the scope you are browsing (the default), only the current folder and its subfolders, only project plots, only global plots, or everything in both. When results come from outside the scope you are browsing, each one is labelled Project or Global.
The reserved _dissections/ and _lighttable/ companion collections stay out of ordinary results. Type _ to list them and Enter to go in, or open them in Folders. Search then stays inside that collection until you leave it.
Click a plot, or press Enter or Space in an empty search box, to select it. Picks survive folder changes and searches. Ctrl+Enter, the Insert button, or a double-click inserts the selection.
Ctrl+click (⌘+click on macOS) a plot, or use Preview / F4, for a full-window view. Arrow keys browse adjacent plots; Escape returns to the gallery. Open Dissections or press D to inspect the plot’s companion groups and panels. Similar names finds filename variants across the current search scope, without selecting them; clear that filter to return to normal browsing.
Pin the gallery
Pin open moves the gallery into its own resizable window. Move it to another screen and keep arranging figures in the editor. The current folder and selection are preserved, and you can still browse the entire plots/ tree and the global library. Insertions leave the window open and use the figure named in its footer; successful insertions clear the submitted picks, ready for the next batch.
Dock returns the same gallery to the editor, and Alt+G brings an already pinned gallery forward. Refresh reloads files and previews. Preview columns adjust as you resize the pinned window, including while the editor is minimized. Closing the project also closes its gallery.
Import from files or the clipboard
Drag files in from your file manager (an SVG with its .fluxplot.json sibling imports as a semantic plot), or paste an image straight from the clipboard. A pasted image has no file behind it, so Flux keeps the original for you in plots/pasted/.
Everything imports at true physical size: a 6.4 × 4.8 inch plot lands exactly that big, never silently rescaled. If an import is larger than its figure frame, a notification says so; Ctrl+Shift+I brings the selection inside the frame (moving it, never resizing it).
Keeping linked sources current
Imported plots retain an accepted SVG and its semantic metadata in the project. When analysis regenerates a linked source, Flux updates that accepted bundle automatically, including changes only to a manifest or recipe. Figure, Paper, and Slides read the accepted version. Accepted copies also catch up with their sources when the project opens and before export. Styling overrides, figure identity, captions, and deliberate placement scale survive source updates.
The catalog’s Sources section shows Linked · current, Updating, Source missing, Update failed, or Frozen version. A missing or malformed source retains the last good version; the error explains what needs attention. Reload sources retries immediately. If a saved caption cannot be read, source refresh stops to preserve it. Restore access to the caption file, then retry Reload sources.
Relink… chooses a moved source. Freeze gives the selected figure an independent saved version; Resume updates links it again. These actions preserve the other figures’ links.
Used in lists manuscript references and slide copies that share source assets. Removing a referenced figure or canvas first shows these uses. Paper references then become unresolved; slide copies retain the assets they need. A slide copy has its own layout and annotations.