APS/Vivado Basics/02. Flow Navigator.md

Design Flow Navigator (Flow Navigator)

After creating a new project, the main Vivado project window shown in Fig. 1 will open.

Figure 1. Empty Vivado project window.

Visually, the main Vivado window is divided into two parts: a narrow Flow Navigator panel on the left and the main Project Manager window on the right. Vivado is a powerful, multi-functional integrated design environment (IDE) composed of several sub-applications that are packaged together into a single graphical shell for convenience. The Flow Navigator allows you to switch between these sub-applications within a single window.

The design flow involves cyclically repeating the following steps:

1. Writing code.
2. Analyzing the resulting schematic for easily detectable errors.
3. Simulating the schematic.
4. Synthesis.
5. Implementation.
6. Generating a bitstream for programming the FPGA.

Some of these steps are described in more detail in the chapter "FPGA Implementation Steps".

If an error is found at any step, the process returns to step 1 and repeats from the beginning. Thanks to the Flow Navigator, you do not need to launch a separate application for each step — you can quickly move between stages within a single graphical window.

Depending on which sub-application is activated in the Flow Navigator, the main area of the Vivado window changes accordingly. When a project is created, the Project Manager is activated automatically (highlighted in teal in the Flow Navigator), which is why the Project Manager opens in the main window.