The Flow Navigator (shown in the following figure) provides control over the major design process tasks, such as project configuration, synthesis, implementation, and bitstream generation. The commands and options available in the Flow Navigator depend on the status of the design. Unavailable steps are grayed out until required design tasks are completed.
The Flow Navigator (shown in the following figure) differs when working with projects created with third-party netlists. For example, system-level design entry, IP, and synthesis options are not available.
As the design tasks complete, you can open the resulting designs to analyze results and apply constraints. In the Flow Navigator, click Open Elaborated Design, Open Synthesized Design, or Open Implemented Design. For more information, see Opening Designs to Perform Design Analysis and Constraints Definition.
When you open a design, the Flow Navigator shows a set of commonly used commands for the applicable phase of the design flow. Selecting any of these commands in the Flow Navigator opens the design, if it is not already opened, and performs the operation. For example, the following figure shows the commands related to synthesis.