karkas:
To be clear, NG's method is a sketch running on any arduino board, then wired to a target arduino board. No other programmer is or needs to be, involved
Thanks retrolefty. My question was because I intend to program it directly from the IDE to the ATmega2560 via AVRISP MKII, and not use the Arduino MEGA as ISP.
What you mean is that once you download the Nick Gammon's bootloader to an arduino you don't need the IDE for programming the target device, right? just wire the board and the target the vice?
Well Nick's sketch does use the IDE's serial monitor to report progress and maybe a 'hit a key' to begin, it's been awhile sense I've used it.