Show "Tools > Port" menu even when empty

[per1234]

Describe the request

Show A Port menu item under the Arduino IDE Tools menu even when there are no ports to populate that Tools > Port menu.

🙂 The lack of ports will be communicated to the user in an intuitive manner.

Describe the current behavior

The Arduino IDE's Tools > Port menu is populated by the discovered ports.

An unexpected lack of a port is a common problem for Arduino users. This might happen when the user has a bad USB cable, didn't install the drivers for their board, burned up the board, etc.

Currently, when no ports were discovered the Tools > Port menu item is missing entirely. I feel this is not a great user experience. An empty menu better communicates the lack of a port to the user than the menu itself being absent. The missing menu gives the user the impression there is a fault in the Arduino IDE application rather than a lack of an external resource listed by the menu.

Compare to the behavior of Arduino IDE 1.x under these conditions:

Arduino IDE version

2.0.0-rc1-snapshot.f0d9894

Operating system

Windows

Operating system version

10

Additional context

There are some other menus that are dependent on external resources:

• File > Sketchbook - Equivalent request tracked at If Sketchbook is empty, no Sketchbook menu item is present under File #569
• File > Examples - this will never be empty under normal conditions due to the built-in examples included with the Arduino IDE installation
• Tools > Board - this is unlikely to be empty due to the IDE installing Arduino AVR Boards on first run ([ATL-1294] At first ide startup invoke installation of arduino:avr #497)

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Originally reported at https://forum.arduino.cc/t/compilation-fails-due-to-no-upload-port-specified/926836/5

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Additional reports:

• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/why-is-there-no-port-menu-item-under-tools/942983

[seaxwi]

I think this issue should be prioritized. I am getting feedback from several Help Center readers that are confused about why the menu option is missing. I'm addressing this on my end by updating content, but the fact remains that there are tons of content out there assuming that the Tools > Port menu will always be available. I agree with @per1234 about an empty menu being fundamentally better for user experience.

I suggest displaying the text "No ports discovered" (or whatever the Board Selector shows). This way there is a shared "phrase" that lends itself to searching and writing troubleshooting content.