Filters can be used to hide certain terms and/or links in a ontology editor panel. When a filter is placed on a ontology editor panel, only matching terms and links are shown.
Ontologies can be filtered using the standard search panel:
A ontology editor panel can be filtered by designing a filter in the filter designer on the left, and pressing the "Filter" button. The primary ontology editor panel will be filtered. If the primary ontology editor panel is already filtered and a new filter is applied, the old filter will be replaced with the new filter.
To apply a filter to a ontology editor panel other than the primary ontology editor panel, drag and drop the filter button onto the desired ontology editor panel. The filter will be applied to the target panel.
If a term filter is used to filter a ontology editor panel, only terms that match the filter will be shown. The only links that will be shown are links between matching terms.
If a link filter is used to filter a ontology editor panel, only links that match the filter will be shown. Terms will be shown if they are the child term of a matching link.
If both a link filter and term filter are used to filter a ontology editor panel, only terms that match the term filter will be shown, and links that match the link filter will be shown. If a link matches the link filter, but the child term of that link does not match the term filter, the link will not be shown. This kind of filtering gives you the greatest degree of control of filtering behavior.
Note that the filtering behavior is quite different depending on whether you are filtering with a term filter, a link filter, or both. The kind of filter that is applied depends on whether "Term filtering" and "Link filtering" are enabled in the "Advanced" tab. Make sure that you have selected the filtering mode you want before filtering to avoid unexpected behavior.
To remove a filter, click the filter menu button
beneath the ontology editor panel from which you would like to
remove the filter. Choose "Remove filter" or "Remove all filters and renderers" from the popup menu.
Sometimes, a term will match a filter, but none of that term's parents match the filter. In that case, there's no way to connect that term to the rest of the ontology in the ontology editor panel. Terms that have been cut off in this way are called "orphan terms".
Sometimes, you'll want to hide these orphaned terms altogether. But other times, you may want these orphaned terms to appear as ontology roots.
To specify which behavior you want, click the root picking algorithm
button beneath the ontology editor panel. To hide orphaned nodes, choose the
"STRICT" algorithm from the popup menu. To show orphaned nodes as roots, choose
the "GREEDY" algorithm.
See The ontology editor panel for more information about the root picking algorithm.