Customizing Views
Tailor your topology with grouping rules, edge filters, and manual layout.
Each topology perspective can be customized with grouping rules, edge filters, and manual positioning to show exactly what you need.
Grouping Rules
Grouping rules change how things are organized in your topology. Use the Group by controls in the toolbar to apply them. Each perspective has a fixed top-level container rule and a customizable set of element rules that organize nodes within those containers.
Container rules define what the main containers are:
- Subnet — L3 Logical's container rule
- Application — Application's container rule
- Host — L2 Physical and Workloads' container rule
- Docker Bridges — On L3 Logical, collapses Docker bridge subnets into their host
Element rules organize nodes within each container into sub-groups. Each rule applies to specific perspectives:
| Rule | What it groups | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Service Category | Group services by category | Applications, Workloads |
| Tag | Group entities by tag | All perspectives |
| Hypervisor | Group VMs by hypervisor | Workloads |
| Container Runtime | Group containers by runtime | Workloads |
| Stack | Group containers deployed together as a stack (e.g., Docker Compose, Podman Compose) | L3 Logical, Applications |
| Trunk Ports | Group trunk ports (ports carrying multiple VLANs) | L2 Physical |
| VLAN | Group access ports by native VLAN ID | L2 Physical |
| Port Status | Group ports by operational status | L2 Physical |
Edge Filtering
Each perspective shows its own connection types, some by default and some as overlays you toggle on when you need the detail. On L3 Logical, for example, Same Container links the addresses of a container attached to several bridge subnets, and Container Runtime connects each bridge subnet to its host.
Clicking a connection highlights what it relates. A relationship edge such as Same Host lights up every node it ties together; a point-to-point edge highlights only its own segment.
Metadata Filtering
Beyond tags, some perspectives offer metadata filter groups that fade everything except the elements you're interested in. The By staleness group (Current / Stale) narrows the view to entities discovery hasn't seen within their network's window — see Staleness. Other groups include service category and, on Workloads, virtualization type. A filter group only appears when the entities in view actually differ on that dimension.
Tag-Based Filtering
Filter your topology by tags to focus on what matters. Filtered elements fade to reduced opacity instead of disappearing, so the overall layout stays stable while your focus area stands out.
Large topologies
Above a few hundred elements, a perspective changes how it opens so it stays usable:
- Containers start collapsed, and you expand the ones you're interested in. A container you expand stays expanded — the view never re-collapses it behind you.
- Off-screen nodes aren't drawn while you pan. Only what's in the viewport is rendered, which is what keeps panning smooth at that size.
Neither affects the diagram itself. Layout and export both work from the whole graph, so an exported image is never cropped to what happened to be on screen. Below those sizes nothing changes — small topologies open exactly as they always have.
Positioning and Layout
- Drag nodes to reposition hosts and services (requires Edit Mode)
- Drag container edges to resize containers
- Click connections to show handles, then drag to reroute them
Your manual layout is preserved automatically as discovery continues.