KiCad as portable application in Windows

I’ve opened a wishlist bug for KiCad as portable application in Windows
Please feel free to vote for it.

Don’t you think, as portable, KiCad would become huge in size? I think, it would be great to have cloud integration in KiCad project manager to save projects in cloud. Then, it will be easier to move files and view on different systems.

Github can be used for same purpose.

Well, it wouldn’t be larger than a KiCad installed in system :wink:
And with today’s USB flash and SSD drives several hundreds of megabytes don’t matter :smile:

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Devs will definitely give it a try. :sunny: By the way, if you do not install PDF help files, installation size will be 50:50.

Are you sure? The duplicate bug has been marked as “won’t fix”, so that doesn’t sound like trying. This has been requested a few times before, I’ve never seen devs express any interest in it. The usual reactions is “can’t see why it is needed”.

The install size is really not an issue, the problem is there is no way to configure where the users config files are stored, that seems like an easy thing to add.

I made a portable version for windows 64 bit for my students. I had to make some changes to the code (for the file locations, fptable etc.) and recompile it though.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/kicad-users/conversations/messages/20270

Yes, I am.

Mine are here /home/user/.config/kicad you have to find yours yourself.

:penguin: :tea: :floppy_disk: :flashlight:

Mmm, okay. I get the feeling we are not speaking the same language. Your reply does not make any sense with regard to what I wrote.

Here is the link to the original wishlist bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/594002
At the moment it’s marked as “won’t fix” which means it will not be implemented.
But feel free to add your voice there :smile:

The launchpad bug tracker is quite poor and old fashioned, it is geared towards reporting bugs rather than change requests, and a centralised development model. There doesn’t appear to be a way to introduce a change/enhancement request, or to flag an issue as waiting to be assigned. Github for example is much more flexible.

So what I read between the lines is that while the devs haven’t rejected the idea out of hand, it isn’t on their previously discussed plans, so they don’t intend to implement it, but if someone outside the core group wants to submit a patch it might be considered.

Often there are new devs looking for simple bugs or changes to work on, this sort of enhancement would be ideal for that list.

maybe.

This is also possible.

It’s not so much “not needed” but “I’m not spending my time on this - someone else can do it if they wish”. With all the big high-priority items it’s hard to imagine any dev would want to spend time on such a thing. After all this is a deployment issue and not a development issue.

No it isn’t. You can’t deploy it as a portable app without some development changes. If you read up thread you can see someone did actually make those changes. It’s not rocket science.

If devs want to kick an issue to the wishlist that’s fine, but this “not a bug; won’t fix” attitude is very tedious for users to deal with. We’re here trying to promote KiCad, but it’s really disheartening when perfectly reasonable suggestions for improvements get rejected for no good technical reason.

To make it clear we’re not demanding that devs do work for us. We’re just asking that feature requests are assessed on technical merit, and anyone who wants to volunteer their time gets an idea what sort of things users are asking for. There is absolutely no harm putting items on a wishlist, if they make technical sense. There is no expectation that anyone has to work on them.

Also, as I said, the small items are useful for new or occasional contributors who can pick up small changes while the more experienced devs can tackle the major items.

2 Likes

@firewalker, would you be willing to revisit what you’ve done and put it into mainline?

@bobc, I absolutely agree with what you’re saying, nobody demands anything as we haven’t paid for it but in my view marking a wishlist bug that makes technical sense as “won’t fix” decreases visibility for new/occasional developers who might want to implement such feature

I have packaged KiCad in PortableApps.com format. You can download the PAF file from SourceForge or here.