You could use ImageKit.io and send the file direct from the front end then do the transform then import the file into xano (or leave it in imagekit). There are smart-crop options I think in imagekit. Xano strips metadata and cant do transforms on signed urls so there is benefit to using a DAM like imagekit. You can do the imagekit upload from a workflow and javascript can be generated by Claude or other tool.
For the native remove “x” button - if you don’t fork the component there is a slight workaround where you can trigger the workflow on a change which is triggered by this button as well as an upload. So then in the workflow you check if the file was removed and run whatever logic. I use this to know if i need to remove a file from the backend after it’s been stored
I would also like an option on the component to not have the list. The old version could be setup that way