[yashjawale]

What?

Follow up to #83854
Carries over changes from #84940

This PR prevents animation of item removal so that any items below MediaEdit don't overlap it while it animates to the reduced height.

Why?

Removing the first item from a compact multiple selection makes the remaining rows animate outside the shrinking group and briefly overlap any items below the component. Leading to a degrated user experience.

How?

This PR updates animation logic so that it is only applied when same attachment IDs change order.
When items are added or removed, the running movement animations are cancelled and the rows are placed directly in their new positions. Membership changes are checked even when a surviving row's index stays unchanged.

Testing Instructions

We can test this by temporarily applying this patch to allow multiple selection in Site Editor's Identity section for "Site logo" input.

Patch

diff --git a/packages/fields/src/components/media-edit/index.tsx b/packages/fields/src/components/media-edit/index.tsx
index 631c909d03..dc68d71ca6 100644
--- a/packages/fields/src/components/media-edit/index.tsx
+++ b/packages/fields/src/components/media-edit/index.tsx
@@ -611,8 +611,9 @@ export function MediaEditControl< Item >( {
 	onChange,
 	hideLabelFromVision,
 	allowedTypes = [ 'image' ],
-	multiple,
-	isExpanded,
+	// multiple,
+	// isExpanded,
 	validity,
 	isPickerFiltered,
 	featuredImageFlow,
@@ -633,6 +634,8 @@ export function MediaEditControl< Item >( {
 	 */
 	pickerTitle?: string;
 } ) {
+	const multiple = true;
+	const isExpanded = false;
 	const MediaUploadComponent = isPickerFiltered
 		? FilteredMediaUpload
 		: ConditionalMediaUpload;

1. After the patch, navigate to /wp-admin/site-editor.php?p=%2Fidentity
2. Select multiple images for site logo
3. Remove the ones on top to confirm that the list doesn't animate
4. Confirm that the items still animate for changing order of exisitng items.

Screenshots or screencast

Before	After
Screen.Recording.2026-10-22.at.11.58.43.AM.mov	Screen.Recording.2026-10-22.at.12.14.56.PM.mov

Use of AI Tools

None

[github-actions]

🤖 PR meta 🤖

🎉 Props

If you're merging code through a pull request on GitHub, copy and paste the following into the bottom of the merge commit message.

Co-authored-by: yashjawale <yashjawale@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: ciampo <mciampini@git.wordpress.org>

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[ciampo]

LGTM 🚀