One of the challenges of presenting a class which uses the Arduino IDE is the setup of student’s computers quickly so they can work lab problems. This involves installing the Arduino IDE, example programs, libraries, documentation and sometimes a board manager package if you are using something like ESP8266 or ESP32. Using the normal installation method, the program files are located in one location while other files will be in the user area. After struggling with this many times, I found a way to make this operation simple with Windows PCs. It is not supported for MacOS.
Arduino V1 supports a Portable option. In summary, you just download the zip file, unzip it, create a “portable” folder and all programs, libraries and packages will be saved in this folder structure.
I create a folder for each class under (top)/portable/sketchbook. Libraries and board manager packages can be installed the normal way. Users can then access programs in the IDE using the File tab and choosing Sketchbook, class name and program name.
Presentation PDF files are available using File Explorer in (top)/portable/sketchbook_slides.
When the configuration is complete, I zip it and upload to location available to students.
Want to see a quick live demo? Go to http://www.pamplin.com/dms/ and, for my most recent version, download and unzip ardu_02_23_23.zip. Start Arduino by clicking arduino.exe in the top folder. A common mistake is to use a different technique and run a previously installed Arduino release. A quick way to check is to click File and Sketchbook. You should see a list of my classes.