Comment 11 for bug 172162

Steren:
My point is that the user shouldn't worry about the images being relative or absolute. As I specified in my blueprint, Inkscape should make images in the same directory (or children) relative automatically, and probably the same for folders that share the same parent than the one that contains the svg. The rest should be marked as absolute.
Of course, you can't fight a messy user who has all his files scattered all around, but maybe you should think if we need extra features for people who can't get their project organized.

In response to your example cases:
- Folder reorganization: If you move your images manually to a new folder, you'll likely use a children folder, the same folder or a folder that shares the same parent of your svg file. Relinking one single image using the image properties dialog would trigger the smart re-linking, so with a single operation you'd get your links fixed automatically.
- Share your work: The save as dialog offers a zipped svg file with collected images. It grabs every image you have linked in your SVG and puts them in a zip file, along the SVG document. It can be improved, the images should be put in a children folder labelled "images" and then compressed, but it covers the need of sharing work without loosing your image links.

I'm not saying that your links manager wouldn't be a useful feature at all, but it's a completely new tool (with its own window, thumbnails, and all) and I think we can have a similar solution more immediately revamping the existing image properties dialog.
I still think that an impreved XML editor (with filters and thumbnails, as you say) would be more useful, and it would help to select images without the need of unlocking or unhiding them.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm looking forward to work together on this project too.
Maybe we should follow this discussion in the mailing list and move the conclusions to the blueprint.