How to run AE Setup

Due to the Anniversary Edition (AE) being a simple fan-produced project, the Setup application is not signed with an Apple Developer certificate.  In macOS 10.12 and above, Apple's Gatekeeper security settings require you to perform at least the first step below before running an unsigned app that you've downloaded.  The second step may not be required.

Short Version ("Just tell me what to do")
1. Open the Terminal and type "xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine " (don't forget the space at the end), then drag the Anniversary Edition Setup application into the window.  The command should look like this:

xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/Anniversary\ Edition\ Setup.app

Hit Enter to run the command.  This will un-quarantine the app.

2. If double-clicking the application gives you a message like…
"'Anniversary Edition Setup' can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer."
…or…
"'Anniversary Edition Setup' can't be opened because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store."
…then you need to right-click the Setup app and choose "Open", then click the "Open" button in the "Are you sure?" prompt.

Technical Version ("Why am I doing this?")
1. Even if Setup seems to run fine, the applications it installs will fail to work properly because of a feature called Gatekeeper Path Randomization (GPR), AKA "app translocation".  Whenever you download a file normally, macOS places a "quarantine" flag on it; if you expand a downloaded ZIP file, the uncompressed contents are also placed under quarantine.  When a quarantined application is run, GPR invisibly relocates it to a random path before running it in order to prevent an exploit called "dylib hijacking".  GPR has broken a number of Mac applications distributed outside the App Store, and ours are no exception.  The AE's applications cannot operate on Oni's data if they don't know where Oni is in relation to them.  Thus your first step has to be using the "xattr" ("extended attribute") tool to remove the quarantine flags from the contents of AE Setup.

2. Gatekeeper will initially refuse to allow an unsigned app to run unless you use the contextual menu to open it.   (After doing this once, Gatekeeper will allow you to open the application again by simply double-clicking it, though you should only need to run Setup once.)  In our tests, this step is not necessary when you have un-quarantined an application, but if it does happen, this is how you deal with it.

We hope to have a better solution to this issue in the near future.  In the meantime, thanks for your patience, and we hope you'll agree it's worth the trouble!