When I press the “Fast Access toFreeRoute …” toolbar button I get the dialog with three buttons but the middle “Export … And Launch…” button is disabled. I have copied the freeroute.jar file to the kicad bin directory as suggested in other posts but this has not helped. I can live without this feature but it would be handy. I’m using the 4.0.2-stable version on 64bit Windows 7. Does anyone have any ideas?
Ta,
Glyphi
I run FreeRoute by starting a Command window (Windows->Accessories->Command Prompt) and running the commands :
cd C:\github\freerouting-freerouting\binaries "C:\Program Files (x86)\java\jre1.8.0_66\bin\java" -jar FreeRouting.jar
Change the paths to your java.exe and FreeRouting.jar as necessary.
Yup, that is what I currently do, though via a shortcut (avoids the open DOS box). Java has even set itself up nicely, so I just have to go FreeRouting.jar. Nice when it all works!
I was trying to get that middle button enabled, just for completeness and out of lazyness! Others have managed on different OSs, I wondered if it was just a Windoze thing.
Thanks!
Have you tried using one of the nightly Kicad builds as a test - I am using these in Windows 7 64bit and FreeRoute works:
http://downloads.kicad.org/windows/nightly/
It might be worth a try to see if a different version makes any difference.
It’s starting to seem like 4.0.2 is getting left behind by nightly. This can make helping people on different versions very complicated 
Sadly I know just what you mean. Doya reckon using a nightly is a good idea for someone who isn’t using it for mission critical work?
Whoops, should have read BOTH of your comments… Trying nightly now
Great under Application: kicad
Version: (2016-04-11 BZR 6687, Git f239aee)-product, release build
it works! Just copy the jar into the bin directory. Much smoother when fiddling with placement,
Many thanks to Y’all, contributors and supporters, this is such a different beast to 5 years ago!
I am trying to stick with 4.0.2 as I am starting to use it commercially. As I have only been using KiCad a few months, I don’t want to get to adventurous with unknown reliability nightlies.
I am taking a copy of BZR6687 as you like it, let us know if anything obviously breaks
Will do. I should have experimented with keeping both versions on the system - but didn’t like the possibilities. On a decent machine where VMs run well (think: lots of memory) I’d suggest going that way, if you can keep all the libraries on a shared drive it could be a good way of going for the latest and greatest with instant fallback to ole reliable
Y’all have fugn now.
I have installed the latest 7138 nightly and copied both FreeRouting.exe and FreeRouting.jar into the kicad bin folder.
when i checked in kicad the middle button is not activated.
Then I downloaded the latest jre8 for win7-64 but still that button is not activated, but now I can run by double clicking the FreeRouting.exe and manually open the dsn file.
But anyway, how to activate that button in kicad?
I think the file needs to be called “freeroute.jar”.
It worked after renaming it as “freeroute.jar”.
Many thanks.