Filters
Filters narrow your portfolio to a subset of projects, and the same selection drives both views. In Graph View that re-lays the map as a grid of small islands - one focal project each, surrounded by everything it links to directly; in Table View it simply keeps the rows you picked. Reach for filters when the global map is too dense to follow, or when you want to focus on a handful of projects.
01. The three filter modes
A floating panel in the top-left corner of the canvas holds the filter. Click the filter icon to open it, then pick a mode.
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| All | No narrowing - the whole portfolio as one global map. This is the off switch: pick All to return to the full picture. |
| Top Projects | Synaps auto-ranks projects by how connected they are and keeps the most connected ones. |
| Custom | You hand-pick exactly which projects to keep. |
Choosing Top Projects or Custom narrows your portfolio. In Graph View the kept projects are laid out as islands - the split layout the next few sections describe; in Table View the same selection controls which rows the table shows.
02. Top Projects
Synaps automatically picks the most-connected projects as hubs. A small - / value / + stepper lets you choose how many islands you want.
- The minimum is 1.
- The maximum depends on your map - Synaps caps it at the number of projects that actually have cross-project dependencies.
Projects with no cross-project dependencies are left out of Top Projects, since the mode is about the busiest hubs. This is the fastest way to see "the projects everyone depends on."
03. Custom selection
Pin specific projects manually as hubs:
- Click the filter icon.
- Switch to Custom.
- Use the search bar to find projects, then tick the ones you want.
Every project is listed here - including projects with no cross-project dependencies - and the ones you pick stay pinned to the top of the list so they are easy to find again. The selected projects also appear as small avatar chips in the panel. Click a chip to remove it. If you pin many, the strip caps at 5 visible chips and rolls the rest into a +N pill - hover the pill to see the full list.
04. What an island shows
Each island has:
- A hub project at its centre - the project the island is about.
- Every project the hub depends on or is depended on by, arranged in rings around it.
- Only the lines among those projects - the rest of the graph is hidden.
A project can appear in several islands if it neighbours several hubs. It keeps its real size, colour, and tooltip - only the layout changes.
05. How projects are sorted inside an island
More-connected neighbours land in the inner rings, less-connected ones in the outer rings. A tidying pass slides each project along its ring to reduce line crossings.
06. When a pinned project goes away
If you pin a project and later it is deleted or becomes inaccessible to you, Synaps quietly drops it from the islands. The pin itself is not removed - if the project comes back, it shows up again automatically.
A pinned project that simply has no cross-project dependencies is not dropped: in Custom mode it stays pinned and remains on the map.
07. Search while the map is filtered
When the map is narrowed, the search palette (⌘ K / Ctrl K) lists only the hub projects - picking one snaps the canvas to that island. To search across every project again, set the filter back to All.
08. Filtering in Table View
The three modes drive the Table View too. A table has no islands, so narrowing simply controls which project rows appear: All lists every project, Top Projects keeps the most-connected ones (with the same island-count stepper), and Custom shows exactly the projects you pinned. Your choice carries across unchanged when you switch between Graph View and Table View.