kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Werner Almesberger wrote:
> Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
>
> > I question whether we could ever muster enough resources to come even 
> > close to what freerouter offers NOW.
>
> How about integrating Freerouter into the KiCad codebase then ?
>
> The whole "streaming java" setup seems rather awkward. I spent
> about a day unsuccessfully trying to get it to work. I suppose
> others may have had similar experiences.

Getting it to work, or learning it? It should take 10 minutes to get it 
to work with a good Java installation in place from the time you start 
your clock.

Learning it will take you a day or more, but it is worth it. Because it 
is in Java and because the source is not available, I don't see a clear 
path for better integration. Java Web Start works well for me on 
Linux. After the first time, I usually run it simply by typing in

$ javaws freeroute.jnlp

on the command line.

As I said, the export needs to pass "net classes" from Kicad, and that 
means Kicad has to have them. For the time being, I add them manually 
to the *.dsn file with a text editor before I load it into freerouter, 
but that requires special knowledge and is not convenient. Search for 
my past postings on this.

Freerouter is worth two days to learn, if that is what it takes. I 
could not have done my board without it, period. Kicad had *no chance* 
of routing my 6 layer board. The manual push and shove routing is 
priceless and world class.

What platform are you having a problem getting it to work on? Did you 
ask for help on the freerouting.net forum?

Dick