Running and Stopping Processes

ISE

In the Processes pane of the Design panel, you can run processes on your selected source file. Processes are used to run tasks, such as synthesis or implementation, or to open interactive tools to complete tasks, such as constraint entry, floorplanning, design analysis, and device programming.

Note If you are running processes which take a long period of time, you can set up a Process Completion Notification. For details on how to do this, see Receiving Process Completion Notification.

To Run or Stop a Process

In the Design panel, select a Design View from the drop-down list.
In the Hierarchy pane, select the source file to process.
Note The source file you select affects the processes that appear in the Processes pane; only the processes that apply to the selected source file are shown.
In the Processes pane, select a process.
Select one of the following commands from the Process menu:
- Run - runs the selected process and any preceding processes that are out of date. You can also click the Run toolbar button , or double-click the process to run it.
- Rerun - forces a run on the selected up-to-date process.
- Rerun All - forces a run on the selected up-to-date process and all preceding processes.
- Open Without Updating - opens a file for an out-of-date task, without rerunning preceding processes. For more information about the out-of-date status, see the table below.
- Stop - stops the currently running process. You can also click the Stop Process toolbar button . Stopping a process is not always immediate; some processes may proceed until a suitable stopping point is reached.
  Note If you stop the Place and Route process, the Stop command opens the Stop Process dialog box, which allows you to either stop the process or save an intermediate view of your design using SmartPreview™ technology.

When you run a process, Project Navigator automatically processes your design as follows:

Automatically runs lower-level processes
When you run a high-level process, Project Navigator runs associated lower-level processes or sub-processes. For example, if you run Implement Design for your FPGA design, all of the following sub-processes are run: Translate, Map, and Place & Route.
Automatically runs preceding processes
When you run a process, Project Navigator runs any preceding processes that are required, thereby "pulling" your design through the design flow. For example, to pull your design through the entire flow, double-click Generate Programming File.
Automatically runs related processes for out-of-date processes
If you run an out-of-date process, Project Navigator runs that process and any related processes required to bring that process up to date. It does not necessarily run all preceding processes. For example if you change your UCF file, the Synthesize process remains up to date, but the Translate process becomes out of date. When you run the Map process, Project Navigator runs Translate but does not run Synthesize.

After running a process, one of the following status icons appears next to the process in the Processes pane.

Status	Icon	Meaning
Running		The process is running.
Up-to-date		The process ran successfully with no errors or warnings.
Warnings reported		The process ran successfully but warnings were encountered.
Errors reported		The process ran but errors were encountered.
Out-of-date		Design changes were made that require the process to be rerun.
Not run	No icon	The process was never run, or status does not apply to this process.

Note If a process status appears to be inaccurate, you can force the status to be up-to-date, as described in Forcing a Process to Up-to-Date Status. If a process is marked as up-to-date, as warnings reported, or as errors reported, the Run command is disabled.