Bethesda Plugin Manager - Extended Mod

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Description

This is an extended fork of Parapets' Bethesda Plugin Manager for Mod Organizer 2. It replaces MO2's built-in plugin list with a fully featured one: group management with persistent colors, plugin notes, dynamic double-click behavior, keyboard shortcuts, redundancy conflict detection, and several bug and performance fixes. If you run large load orders and have ever wanted more control over your plugin list, this is for you.

This mod does not require the base Bethesda Plugin Manager (Parapets) to be installed first. It ships as a complete drop-in.

All new features come with matching settings in the plugin's options panel, nothing is forced on you.

If you are a modlist author, please consider adding the archive to your download folder to support the work!

Requirements

1. Mod Organizer 2
2. Visual C++ Redistributable 2022

What's New Over the Base Mod

Here's everything this fork adds or changes compared to the original Parapets release.

Complete Double-Click Behavior

The original mod always opened the plugin info dialog on double-click. That's been replaced with context-aware behavior:

1. Double-click a plugin → opens the origin mod panel (same as double-clicking a mod in the left pane, vanilla MO2 behavior)
2. Double-click the Notes column on any plugin → edits the note inline
3. Ctrl + double-click a plugin → opens the origin folder in Explorer
4. Double-click a group header → expands or collapses that group

If you preferred the original behavior where double-clicking opened the plugin info dialog, enable "Double-click opens Plugin Info" in the options.

Plugin Notes

You can now annotate any plugin with a short text note. Notes are visible directly in the list as a dedicated column, editable from the right-click menu or by double-clicking the Notes cell. They persist in a pluginnotes.txt file inside the active profile folder, so they survive restarts and profile switches.

Redundancy Conflict Indicator (White Lightning)

Plugins that are fully overridden (where every one of their records is won by a later plugin) now show a white lightning bolt icon, mirroring how MO2 marks redundant mods on the left pane. It's a sub-option of conflict management and can be toggled off independently.

Persistent Ignore Record

In the plugin info view, ignored records now survive a refresh or MO2 restart. Previously toggling "Ignore Record" for a conflict entry would reset on the next reload. Ignored state is now written immediately to pluginignoredrecords.txt in the profile folder.

Group Colors

Right-click any group header to find "Set Group Color..." and "Clear Group Color" options. Colors are stored persistently per group name and survive restarts; useful for organizing large lists by category at a glance.

Context Menu Improvements

1. "Enable Group" / "Disable Group" now appears whenever one or more group rows are selected (not just single selection)
2. "Collapse others" is available when a single group is selected
3. "Open Plugin Info..." is no longer shown for group rows, only actual plugin rows
4. Conflicting files data is now shown in the plugin popup

Group Behavior Improvements

1. Dragging/dropping a group now also moves the plugins inside it
2. Creating empty groups is now allowed

Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+Shift+S Sort (run LOOT)

Ctrl+Shift+G Clean Groups (remove empty)

Ctrl+Alt+G Reset Group Structure

F2 Rename selected group

Delete Remove selected group

Ctrl+Shift+M Merge selected groups

Additional Buttons

Optional and toggleable buttons displayed next to the "Sort" button at the top of the plugin tab:

1. Undo / Redo buttons for plugin actions
2. Clean Groups button: removes empty groups
3. Reset Groups button: resets the group system back to default

Restored Behaviors

An optional setting marks plugin types visually with font styles directly in the list:

.esl Light plugin Bold + Italic

.esm Master file Bold

ESPFE .esp with ESL flag Italic

On by default. Disable in settings if you don't want it.

The "Lock Load Order Position" option was also restored, previously disabled by the original mod:

Performance

Cell Conflict Detection: the Big One

The original mod's detailed conflict system parses every record in every plugin, including CELL and WRLD child groups (REFR, ACHR and similar). In large load orders, this alone can add 5 seconds or more to every refresh, tested on a modlist with 3700 mods and 3750 plugins. The issue is that those CELL child records generate hundreds of thousands of entries with very low signal value for most users.

A new setting, "Enable CELL conflict detection", lets you opt out of that specific parsing pass. Disabled by default, matching the behavior from before detailed conflict detection existed. If you have a small load order and want the most complete conflict picture, turn it on. Otherwise leave it off and enjoy fast refreshes.

Removed Unnecessary Group Rebuilds

A number of internal operations (enabling/disabling plugins, changing priority, toggling state) were previously emitting a signal that caused the group proxy model to fully rebuild its internal structure on every change. None of those operations actually change group membership. That signal has been removed from all of them. The rebuild now only fires when it actually needs to.

Performance will decrease with the number of mods and plugins you have, and with the number of features you enable. Refresh time might end up being longer on very heavy setups, keep that in mind!

Bug Fixes

Several bugs from the original 0.1.5 release were fixed in this fork:

1. Duplicate plugin row
2. The group proxy model accumulated stale internal state across refreshes without ever clearing it. On a full model reset, the proxy's item map and item list are now cleared before rebuilding. This eliminates the case where the same plugin could end up mapped twice in a group's child list and appear as a duplicate row.
3. "invalid vector subscript" crash; Related to the above: stale item IDs from a previous model state could be referenced after a reset, causing an out-of-bounds vector access in a scroll or paint event. Addressed by the same reset fix, plus an added bounds check in the source map lookup.
4. Post-freeze / CTD desync: If MO2 froze or crashed during a game run, the internal "app is running" flag could get stuck. The plugin now always invalidates its data on the next organizer refresh regardless, clearing any stale state.
5. Protection against unwanted external load order changes: If the "external changes warning" option is disabled, no load order modifications are made when exiting the game. The workaround applies the modifications then reverts them. Behavior remains unchanged if the "external changes warning" option is enabled.

Compatibility

This is a drop-in replacement for the base Bethesda Plugin Manager. It supports any game the base mod supports: Skyrim SE/AE, Fallout 4, Enderal, Starfield, and others.

Profile data is stored in the same profile folder as the base mod, plus two new files: pluginnotes.txt and pluginignoredrecords.txt. These are ignored by the base mod if you ever switch back.

Group colors are stored as MO2 persistent settings under the BSPlugins key and do not interfere with any other plugin.

Possible minor issues with Bethesda Archive Extractor MO2 integration, still being tested. No conflicts with other MO2 plugins are expected.

FAQ

Do I need to start a new profile?

No. All new data files are created automatically the first time they're needed.

I had groups set up with the base mod. Will they carry over?

Yes. This fork reads and writes the same plugingroups.txt format.

The plugin list takes 5+ seconds to refresh and I have a lot of plugins. What do I do?

Make sure "Enable CELL conflict detection" is turned off in settings. That single option is almost always the cause of slow refreshes on large load orders.

I want double-click to open plugin info like before. Is that possible?

Yes. There's a "Double-click opens Plugin Info" option in the settings panel.

A column is cluttering my list. Can I hide it?

Right-click the column header in the plugin list and uncheck the column, or resize it to zero. Some columns are hidden by default anyway.

I found a bug or the fork broke something from the base mod.

Open an issue on the GitHub repo with as much detail as possible. Include your MO2 version, game, and steps to reproduce.

Credits & Source Code

This work took months to achieve. A first upload in November 2025 turned out to be a completely wrong approach. This version actually edits the existing code to fix and expand the base mod, figuring that out, fixing issues, implementing features, and wrestling with a kilometer-long CMake file was quite the journey.

Thanks to the following people:

Parapets for the original Bethesda Plugin Manager. This is built entirely on top of their work.

aglowinthefield for the MO2 2.5.2 conversion

ItzIvy for the mod request and persistent motivation NOW IT IS DONE HOPE U ARE HAPPY BROTHER

Beta testers for all their feedback and suggestions

⟨/⟩ Fork Source Code ⟨/⟩ Original by Parapets

If you'd like to support development:

☕ Ko-fi ❤ Patreon