Sometimes, or in my case, "quite often" when working with Arduinos (Arduinae?) I end up having to flash a whole bunch of boards with the same software, as is the case when working with my RS485 Boards.
This can be quite laborious using the IDE, as each flash requires changing the port in the tools menu to the correct device, changing the board type as you do – somewhat less than ideal, so via the new-ish additions to the IDE as of version 1.0, I’ve thrown together a tool to automate this process.
This allows you to connect any number, of any type of Arduino to your computer and flash them all with a single button press! It requires no modification to the IDE, ins0tead running as an embedded tool in your "~/sketchbook/tools/" folder, and gets loaded into the Arduino IDE as a button under the "Tools" menu.
At the moment, the tool uses some fairly fragile hacks to get the required resources inside the IDE (at the moment, the API has no way of changing the board target from inside a tool, without reflection hackery – hopefully this will change).
See http://johnvidler.co.uk/projects/arduino-batch-flashing-tool/ for the download link.
Based on some straw-polling of people I know personally, I've started already working on an update to the tool to include multiple serial monitors which disconnect, then restore connections when flashing each device. Suggestions are welcome, though!
Only tested on Linux currently, so if anyone gets it running under Windows or Mac, do let me know so I can update the page and/or squash some bugs
Here's hoping this is useful to someone.