BSA Browser v 0.5 by Argent (Aaron White)

incorporating

BSAPACK v 0.1a by ghostwheel

Purpose

Installation

Browsing BSA Files

Packing BSA Files

Unpacking BSA Files

Registering BSA Files

Bugs and Limitations

Important Information

### Purpose

This utility allows you to browse, pack, unpack, and register Bethesda Softworks Archive (bsa) files with a user friendly interface . This program was inspired by Ghostwheel's BSAPack (which the program uses to perform 3 of the 4 functions mentioned), and Splender of the Ashlands' BSA Reader, which are both command line utilities. BSA Browser is ideal for those 'who get lost and panicky at the words "commandline" ' (-Brash).

I have kept most of Ghostwheel's instructions on how to pack and unpack, edited only to refer to the new user interface.

###
Installation

To install, simply extract the zip file to the folder of your choice.

This program requires the Java Runtime Environment. If you don't already have it installed, it can be downloaded directly from Sun's website: http://java.sun.com/update/1.4.2/jinstall-1_4_2_03-windows-i586.cab

### Browsing BSA Files

To browse the contents of a BSA file, click the 'Browse BSA File' button in the task bar to open a file dialog window. Then browse to the file you want and click the 'Browse' button. In this version, all files are displayed in a list, displaying their relative path from the 'Data Files' folder, and are sorted alphabetically. To extract specific files, select all the desired files and double click; this will extract the files to the folder that BSA Browser runs from.

### Packing BSA Files

This function will create a new BSA file. ONLY files in all subdirectories (including nested subdirs) in current directory will be added. Files placed directly in the current directory WILL NOT be added to the archive. Also, at this time it is impossible to update existing BSA archive - you can only create new one (but nothing prevents you from unpacking old archive, modifying couple of files and creating a new archive).

To create a new BSA file, click the 'Pack BSA File' button in the task bar to open a file dialog window. Then browse to the folder you want to pack and click the 'Pack' button. This will create a new BSA file in the selected folder.

###
Unpacking BSA Files

This function will unpack ALL files from the provided BSA archive into the current directory, creating appropriate subdirectories for each file. PLEASE MAKE SURE that current directory IS EMPTY before starting unpacking - never do that directly in Morrowind's "Data Files" directory.
To unpack a BSA file, click the 'Unpack BSA File' button in the task bar to open a file dialog window. Then browse to the file you want to unpack and click the 'Unpack' button. This will create all sub-folders in the folder that the BSA file resides in.

###
Registering BSA Files

In order to use a BSA file with Morrowind, it must have its name listed in the Morrowind.ini file. To do this, click the 'Register BSA Files' button; this will find all BSA files in the Morrowind's "Data Files" folder and add them to the [Archives] section of the morrowind.ini file (if they were not there already). Also it will remove any references from [Archives] section to the BSA files that no longer exist in the "Data Files" folder. If Morrowind.ini [Archives] section is up-to-date, program will just display appropriate message and exit.

### Bugs and Limitations

This is a very early version and as such has many quirks that will be ironed out.

- The most annoying limitation is that files are displayed in a list and not a tree view (as was intended). This will be added in a later version.

- Packing/Unpacking folders/files in the same directory as BSA Browser will 'break' the BSAPack.exe file (will display as 0 KB is size).

- Packing/Unpacking will leave a copy of BSAPack.exe in the folder that was packed/unpacked (does not apply to single file extraction).

IMPORTANT INFORMATION by Ghostwheel
1) BSA archive does not store date/time information about files. Thus, after unpacking, all files will have current date/time. This is a limitation of the BSA file format.
2) BSA archive ALWAYS stores all file names in lowercase. Thus, after unpacking all created directories and files will be in the lowercase. This is also a limitation of the BSA file format.
3) I tried to put various directories in the Morrowind "Data Files" directory into the BSA files. So far, results are following:

- Fonts, Splash, Music and Sound directories SHOULD NOT be placed in the BSA archives. Morrowind will not find them there.

- Icons, Meshes and Textures directories can be freely placed into the single or multiple BSA archives.

- BookArt directory is empty in my installation, so I was not able to test it.

4) I never tested whether or not order in which BSA archives listed in the Morrowind.ini have any effects on the Morrowind. I also have not tested what will happen if same file was put into multipleBSA archives (may that is when order will come into play).

5) Currently BSAPACK can add only up to 20000 files into single BSA archive. While this should be sufficient for most imaginable situations, this limit can be easily increased if necessary.