Portable install?  

It was done to simplify multi-site operation so luckily there was a master copy in store but the on-the-spot convenience failed.

I've also had neighbours lose all their photos (on another cloud service) when a stolen credit card problem meant their monthly fee wasn't paid on time.

Cheerio,

Might be handy for taking your setup to a friend's house, makerspace. or event

I could see a portable install -- as in an install that can be run entirely off of a USB device -- being very useful for anybody that frequently moves between locations where Internet connectivity is not guaranteed. Being able to take my exact PrusaSlicer setup with my presets to a friend's house, MakerSpace or event could be very handy. The ability to plug in a drive and run a program with no further configuration or installation required can be very handy. I used to tote around my preferred Windows text editor and utility programs this way when doing fieldwork. Very handy when you can't just install new software or reboot a system when working away from home.

Unfortunately, as I understand it, making an app truly "portable" in this sense requires compiling in a number of dependencies. I have no idea what would be required for PrusaSlicer to run in this fashion.

You can do that with windows and run it entirely off the usb stick now using the datadir method. I still have my setup for PS and various super slicer builds that do that on my usb stick. I’ve also got my complete model directory structure on there which is why the 128gb stick has only 11gb free lol. The only thing is you either have to start by running the exe, so browsing to the folder or manually set up your own shortcuts on each system you use it on. I find as I do often switch between builds, especially now the alphas are out that just launching the exe is just easiest. 

Unfortunately, as I understand it, making an app truly "portable" in this sense requires compiling in a number of dependencies. I have no idea what would be required for PrusaSlicer to run in this fashion.

That's why I suggested Puppy Linux.  It's designed to be easy to save an optimised bootable, it's small, fast, and if you use the Prusa Slicer appimage all the dependencies are encapsulated.  Of course you'd want your choice of cad software too, FreeCad, Blender, OpenSCAD or whatever so you'd probably need at least a 32GB usb drive to have room to hold your workfiles as well.

Cheerio,

Did that

Posted by: @bobstro

Posted by: @mrstoned

Is it possible to have PS on a portable install like USB or network drive?

You can use the --datadir command-line option to specify the location of config files. The Slic3r manpage has details.

I have been able to use relative paths with config bundles, but haven't tried this with --datadir. Something like ".\dirname" might work.

I did that in the ps-start.bat i have on my directory on my NAS.

Reason i wanted a portable install from the start, was to be able to quick load exported parts in the slicer to view for errors, features, placements of holes etc so i can make quick revisions and try out extrution width, layers, nozzle size etc.

I just wanted to put a flag of caution when updating the installed version of PS it removed non-supplied files.

Dropbox or other shared filesystem

Posted by: @swiss_cheese

Maybe I'm just not understanding the problem fully, but I just use Dropbox. 

This is exactly what I do!

One set of configs/profiles to rule them all, regardless of which machine I am on.

Now.. do be careful if you are running it concurrently from multiple machines as things will write/update at times and you'll then have conflicted files but being human we really only can concentrate on one task at a time as we cooperatively multitask 🙂

RE: Portable install?

This worked PERFECTLY!  Thank you!

PrusaSlicer Portable Instructions

I took the comments from several of you and created a batch file with some rudimentary error checking and messaging. If something is wrong, the batch file will complain and keep the Windows Command window open and let the user know what's wrong. Below is the contents of my batch file:

@echo off
echo Checking for profiles folder.
if not exist .\profiles2 (
echo Profiles folder does not exist; terminating batch file.
GOTO problem1
) else (
echo Profiles folder found.
echo.
)
echo Checking for an installed version of PrusaSlicer.
if not exist .\prusa-slicer.exe (
echo Couldn't find prusa-slicer.exe; terminating batch file.
GOTO problem2
) else (
echo Installed version of PrusaSlicer found.
echo.
GOTO success
)

:problem1
echo.
echo This batch file expects a folder named "profiles" to be in the same folder as
echo an installed version of prusa-slicer.exe. Please create this folder.
echo Hint: md profiles
echo.
pause
exit 1

:problem2
echo.
echo This batch file is looking for software called prusa-slicer.exe. This batch file
echo was unable to locate this file. Possible problems include having the batch file
echo in a folder other than the installed PrusaSlicer folder and/or the file
echo prusa-slicer.exe is missing or renamed something else. Fix these problems by
echo moving the batch file to the installed PrusaSlicer folder and/or changing the
echo name of the software or editing this batch file with the correct name of the
echo software.
echo.
pause
exit 2

:success
echo Starting PrusaSlicer and closing Command Window.
cmd /c start .\prusa-slicer.exe --datadir .\profiles

Instructions:

1. Download the Windows .zip file of PrusaSlicer from the Github releases folder.
2. Extract the contents of the zip file in your portable location.
3. Create a folder called "profiles" in the same folder as the prusa-slicer.exe file you just extracted.
4. Start Notepad.exe or equivalent text editor.
5. Copy and paste the batch file text above into the editor.
6. Save the file as "ps-start.bat" or an equivalent name that ends in .bat, save the file in the same folder as the prusa-slicer.exe file.
7. Run the ps-start.bat file. (If it just opens up in the text editor again, rename the file from ps-start.bat.txt to ps-start.bat.)

This seems to work fine for me, and I'm in a corporate environment (a college) where I am in the Windows group "users" and can't install my own software. Like the others said, it may be different for you.

Rick.

PS. I really made this reply for me and my students. It's easier to find this on the web when I move from one computer to the next or students move from home to school PCs.

RE: Portable install?

Sorry All, I messed up. I was testing the batch file to make sure the error messages worked. I tested it by changing names in the batch file instead of renaming folders and files. The third line has an error in it. It should read:

if not exist .\profiles (

instead of

if not exist .\profiles2 (

Sorry again,

Rick.