Creating or Editing a Design Strategy

ISE

Using the Design Goals and Strategies Editor, you can create a custom Design Strategy or edit an existing Design Strategy. Strategy files are saved with a .xds file extensions and can be located in any directory.

To Create or Edit a Design Strategy

Select Project > Design Goals & Strategies.
In the Design Goals and Strategies dialog box, click the Edit Strategy button.
In the Design Goals and Strategies Editor, do one of the following:
- To create a new Strategy, enter information in the Design goal, Strategy, and Description fields.
- To edit an existing Strategy, click Open, and select an .xds file to edit.
In the Strategy property settings area, do the following:
1. From the Process drop-down list, select the process for the properties you want to modify.
2. In the Properties to select from area on the left, select a property and click the > button to move it to the New strategy settings are on the right.
  This moves the property into your Design Strategy and allows you to change the property value.
  Note Alternatively, you can move all the properties at once using the >> button. To move properties out of your Design Strategy, use the < and << buttons.
3. Change the Strategy Value as needed.
To save the Strategy to the same file, click Save. To save the Strategy to a different filename or location, click Save As.

After creating a custom Design Strategy, you can apply it to your project using either of the following methods:

In the Design Goals and Strategies dialog box, click the browse button next to the Strategy file field and select the Strategy file (.xds extension).
Select the Edit > Preferences menu command. In the Preferences dialog box, expand the ISE General category, and select Design Goals & Strategies. In the Design Goals & Strategies Options, specify the search path directory in the User defined strategy search path field.
After you specify a search path, any .xds files found in this directory are automatically included in the Design Goals and Strategy drop-down lists in the Design Goals and Strategies dialog box.

When editing and applying Design Strategies, please note the following:

If you are working with multiple Design Strategies and want to ensure that property settings from previous Design Strategies are reset, enable the Reset to defaults then apply option. This option resets properties to the Balanced Design Goal and Xilinx® Default Strategy, and then, sets the properties for the selected Strategy.
If you are targeting multiple devices, you must first change the target device for the project and then, create the Strategy files for the targeted device. That is, you can only save Strategies files for the targeted device of the current project. You can open a Strategy file that targets a different device than the current project, but when you save the Strategy file, it is saved for the targeted device of the current project.
If you edit a Design Strategy that is applied to the current project, the edits are made to the current project. If you edit the process property values for a Design Strategy that is applied to the current project, the edits are made to the current project, and the project status is updated accordingly. If you do not want the edits to be made to the current project, save the edited Design Strategy to a different name.
Note If you remove a process property from a Design Strategy that is applied to the current project, the property becomes unlocked, and the value of the property remains as is.