This little utility is designed to take some of the pain out of installing mods on the Baldur's Gate series of game. Modding these games is amn archaic affair: the installer script runs in a Terminal window and asks questions in text about installing each piece of a mod, and the user must answer with "Y" or "N" on the keyboard. It is even more difficult for Mac users, because while Windows mods come with simple .exe installers that begin the process with a double-click, these do not work on a Mac. Mac users must manually navigate to their Baldur's Gate game folder with Terminal commands, and then manually Weidu, the mod installation script handler, for each mod.
No more.
This little app can be simply dropped into your Baldur's Gate game folder and double-clicked like a normal app. It will help you find this or that mod within your game folder, and automatically trigger the Terminal commands to begin installing that mod. It is designed to be treated like an app, but its guts are merely a few very simple Applescripts and UNIX shell scripts, so it does not need to go through the App Store and will not threaten the security of your system. You can run this little app from anywhere (though it will only work in a Baldur's Gate game directory) and if you have several games - BGEE, BG2, IWD, PST, etc. - then you can make a copy for each game's directory and run the copy in any of those places.
Here is how you use it:
First, download some mods from fine websites like the Gibberlings3 forums, the Spellhold Studios forums, and elsewhere. Mods are usually packaged as .ZIP archives, when you unzip them, inside you usually will find several things:
- A folder with the nod's name
- A Windows .EXE file with "setup-" and the mod's name
- Sometimes, a .COMMAND file meant for installation on Macs
- Sometimes, a file with the mod's name and a ".TP2" extension
What you really need is that folder. We call this the "mod folder." If there is a .TP2 file you want that as well, but it is rare. Copy the mod folder, and paste it into your "game folder." The game folder for each game is where the "CHITIN.KEY" file is - if you search for that in a Finder window it should should you all your game folders.
(I tend to install dozens or hundred of mods; I keep my downloaded mod folders in an archive directory, and copy them into my game folders as needed. Note, you can also keep archived copies of your Baldur's Gate game folders. If at any time you want to install mods from a fresh state, just delete your game folder and restore a copy of the archived one. This stuff is quite easy on Macs, you can even run the game from different copies of your game folders.)
... or game folders. Make as many copies of this as you need, put one in each game folder.
The first time you run the MWL your computer will probably not let you do it. When it warns of security issues, open System Settings and go to the 'Privacy and Security' pane. You will have an option there to run programs 1) only from the App Store, or 2) from the App Store and trusted developers. Check the box for #2, and you should also see a notice that the MacOS Weidu Launcher was blocked from running. Here you can tell your Mac that you do indeed want to run this app.
Once you have done that, close System Settings and go back to your game folder, and again run the MWL. This time is will run a tiny mod installer that does nothing to your game, but will initialize a few things: 1) it will copy the Weidu executable into your game folder, and 2) it will ask you what language you use when playing the game. Then it will trigger the Weidu installer in Terminal. As I say this mod does not actually do anything, so you can type 'Y' or 'N' or 'Q' as you see fit.
The next time you run the MWL, it will find any and all mods you have put in your game folder, present them in a list with a suggested install order, and allow you to choose a mod from that list. The install order is not mandatory, you can choose them in any order you like. Note: any recent mods or mods not known to me and nopt included in the suggested install order will appear at the bottom of the list, separated by a few dashes. Some of these mods may well want to be installed early; please look at any mods down there and read their Readme files to get a sense of when you should install them.
When you choose a mod, the MWL will go away and the Terminal Application will appear, and automatically navigate to the correct path and begin the installation of that mod. From here, installing the mod is just like in Windows: it asks you questions, you respond with 'Y'es, 'N'o, 'U'ninstall, or 'Q'uit. When the mod is done installing, it may have you hit 'enter' to complete the process and close the Terminal window.
When that mod is finished installing and the Terminal Window is gone, you can install more mods by simply repeating this process: double-click the MWL, choose the next mod, interact with its installer in the Terminal. Rinse and repeat, as many times as you like. Installed mods will appear in the list with an asterisk '*' so you know which mods you have already installed. You can follow along with the suggested order or you can go according to your own ordered list. You can click mods you have already installed, and it will give you the chance to uninstall them. (Just be aware, the way Weidu works, if you uninstall a mod, it uninstalls all mods that came after it, and then attempts to reinstall them. This process can be a bit fragile; it is just the way Weidu works. Remember, the MWL does not actually do anything except trigger the Weidu installer itself.)
As of version 8 of the MWL, it can do batch installs without needing to interact with the installer for every mod. If you have a WEIDU.LOG file from a prior install that worked well, or from someone else's install on the internet, you can make a copy of it and rename the copy to "MWL.TXT" (make sure you actually change the file extension to .TXT). Put this text file into your game folder, and the next time you run the MWL it will give you a new option, to do a batch install. If you choose this option, the MWL will find every mod component in that list, among the mods in your game folder, and auto-install them in the order specified in the .TXT file. Before doing this, you can feel free to move things around in the list, or delete lines or even add lines - as long as your added lines follow the same format of "~mod/mod.tp2~ #1 #1" where the first number is your chosen language for that mod (be careful, they sometimes differ) and the second number is the component of that mod you want to install.
Note: as of this writing, there is no batch-uninstall option. If you do a batch install and want to uninstall mods you can use the MWL the basic way, choosing each mod from the list and telling it to uninstall; or as mentioned above you can just delete your game folder if you have a clean copy of it archived somewhere.
This mod was created by SubtleDoctor. You can visit The Gibberlings Three for information on this and many other fine mods.
Thanks to the still active and vibrant Infinity Engine modding community.
Tools Used in Creation
WeiDU by Wes Weimer, and then the bigg and then Wisp
Near Infinity by Jon Olav Hauglid, and then Argent77 and Astrobryguy
Copyright 2024. If you want to use or adapt any part of this, please try to contact me at gibberlings3.net/forums to discuss it. If you cannot get in touch with me, assume that you have my permission to use any of this code for any project that is non-commercial, offered for free, and intended for the greater enjoyment of players of Infinity Engine games. If you do so, please credit me, and mention how awesome I am in a comment in the code, or something like that. You may NOT use this code for any profit-making or commercial venture, without express permission from me.