How to install BioEdit on a Mac running Mac OS X

BioEdit is a very popular sequence alignment editor.  It was written by Tom Hall and it was made only for Windows.  This tutorial will show you how to install BioEdit on a Mac without the use of Parallels Desktop or other virtual desktop software running Windows in the background.

You’ll first need to install Wine.

To install Wine on your Mac, you’ll need an Intel Mac and should follow David Baumgold’s guide on how to install Wine on Mac OS X (check the comments below.  Some users have had success while others had some problems).  Follow his guide until you finish Part 3 Install Wine using MacPorts.  Then return to this page.

Install BioEdit using Wine

To install a BioEdit program, first download the installer file.  (http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/bioedit/bioedit.html).  It should end with .exe.  Save the BioEdit installer file in your user directory (it should show up on the Places in your Finder, below your Desktop icon, and shows up as a little house icon).

Open Terminal and run the installer through Wine by using this command:

$ wine setup.exe

XQuartz will open (if it isn’t already), and soon you will the installer. Click through it to install the program.

Install Winetricks

To make BioEdit work, you’ll have to do some additional installations.  In the Terminal window, type:

$ sudo port install winetricks
$ sh winetricks mdac27

The Terminal will open the webpage in your browser. Download the software from the website and put it in /Users/YOURNAME/Library/Caches/winetricks/mdac27

Then on the Terminal window type again:

$ sh winetricks mdac27

Run BioEdit

Now you are ready to launch BioEdit.  To run BioEdit, type in Terminal:

$ cd ~/.wine/drive_c/BioEdit
$ wine BioEdit.exe

Make an short cut for launching BioEdit (optional)

It would be nicer not having to go to the Terminal everytime you want to use BioEdit.  You can make a icon that you can put on your dock in order to launch BioEdit quickly.  Go to your Spotlight search at the top right corner and type “AppleScript Editor”.  Once the program opens, in the big blank space, copy and paste the following:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "/opt/local/bin/wine ~/.wine/drive_c/BioEdit/BioEdit.exe"
end tell

Next, press the Compile button at the top of the window. The text should become colored. Try pressing the Run button to run your script and it should open BioEdit successfully.  Save your script.  You can give it whatever name you’d like, but be sure to select File Format: Application in the save options, and leave Startup Screen unchecked.  Open up the Finder, go to where you saved your script/app, and drag that file to your Dock. It should stay there, just like a real application.  Now you can click it to launch BioEdit quickly without having to type in the Terminal.