You choose which items are important to display and click off those objects not desired. Symbols can be oriented to navigate or playback a flight with the north-up or course up. The title bar of a Symbols window will tell you how wide the display is, rounded to the nearest mile. If you want to see what's the the right or left, simply drag aircraft icon off-center in any and let go of it. It will remain off center.
Symbols is similar to traditional moving map programs.
It can be zoomed from a window one mile wide to thousands of miles wide. Initial redraw is slow when zooming out to vast distances because so many objects are being displayed from the database. Look to one side of your course or further ahead, without zooming, by dragging the aircraft icon off the center of the screen and placing it where you would like. All other items displayed will follow and continue to be displayed relative to the aircraft icons new location. Clicking right on the icon will re-center it.