📣 WinBox 4 is here 📣

Thu Jan 30, 2025 12:20 pm

It is impossible to fix all scaling issues in Windows. Windows is very bad at DPI scaling compared to other OS and Winbox is definitely not the only program that has small pixel level issues at these settings. Since Winbox is now made in QT, we will not be able to fix all issues, at this point, most of the reports are nitpicking. We will try to do some more work, but there is only so much we can do unti it's easier to just use a different resolution or switch your OS.

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 12:36 pm

There are no any problems with DPI in Windows if you use its API correctly. Also, I've never seen a problem with randomly-sized and jumping icons, fonts, lines, etc. in any other Qt app, only in WinBox 4. Even WinBox 3 doesn't have such issues. Suggesting to switch resolution or OS is a total madness, sorry...

Thu Jan 30, 2025 12:43 pm

we have so far not been able to see such jumping around issues here. maybe there is something else at play, if you have those problems

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:04 pm

I can reproduce them on every machine with >100% screen scaling.
Below is the video. Recorded under the Magnifier, every pixel is clearly visible. I'm just slowly changing the window height. You can see that the outer frame thickness is jumping between 1 and 2 pixels. And you can see that the icons height and fonts height are also jumping. OS scaling is 150%, resolution doesn't matter at all. WinBox scaling was 109% on this video.

Archive password: 123

ScalingIssues.zip

Larsa · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:04 pm

It is impossible to fix all scaling issues in Windows. Windows is very bad at DPI scaling compared to other OS and Winbox is definitely not the only program that has small pixel level issues at these settings. Since Winbox is now made in QT, we will not be able to fix all issues, at this point, most of the reports are nitpicking. We will try to do some more work, but there is only so much we can do unti it's easier to just use a different resolution or switch your OS.

Well, I'm pretty sure it all depends on the app's scaling awareness. Qt 6 can scale just fine with the proper use off: QT_ENABLE_HIGHDPI_SCALING, QT_USE_PHYSICAL_DPI, QT_SCALE_FACTOR, QT_FONT_DPI, QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR, AA_EnableHighDpiScaling, AA_UseHighDpiPixmaps, highDpiScaleFactorRoundingPolicy(), devicePixelRatio[F]() etc.

Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:05 pm

teslasystems, this is what I call nitpicking above. If you use the screen at normal resolution, you can't see it. This is why yourself had to make insane zoom for the video, just to show it.

Larsa · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:08 pm

Just curious, what is a "normal resolution" nowadays according to MT?

Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:08 pm

where mouse cursor is not 20% of the screen size? see the video yourself

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:09 pm

teslasystems, this is what I call nitpicking above. If you use the screen at normal resolution, you can't see it. This is why yourself had to make insane zoom for the video, just to show it.

No, it very clearly visible without any zoom. Especially, an awful outer frame. And yes, I've made it under a big zoom just to SHOW it, and to make it clearly visible and understandable for everyone.

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:15 pm

where mouse cursor is not 20% of the screen size? see the video yourself

Don't understand what are you talking about. This is just a small part of my screen that was enlarged using a Magnifier tool.

DjM · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:20 pm

Can you add a button like "Adjust column width" to all windows where is a list of values? The function of that button will be to adjust all columns width, in current view window, to minimum width, where the whole values in the column are visible.

Please let me know if it is required to describe it in different wording :-)

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:23 pm

Can you add a button like "Adjust column width" to all windows where is a list of values? The function of that button will be to adjust all columns width, in current view window, to minimum width, where the whole values in the column are visible.

Please let me know if it is required to describe it in different wording :-)

I was also thinking about it tonight, you are reading my thoughts :D
+1 for this idea.

Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:30 pm

there is an option to disable fractional scaling for winbox, you will then have to use winbox built-in zoom to make it bigger, but there will be no scaling issues due to Windows problems

infabo · Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:18 pm

teslasystems, this is what I call nitpicking above. If you use the screen at normal resolution, you can't see it. This is why yourself had to make insane zoom for the video, just to show it.

I did not mention it before because I did not want to be the one who is nitpicking. But I have to give teslasystems a +1 for pointing this out.

And I have to disagree to the "you cant see it at normal resolution" claim. I can see it very well. When resizing windows the fonts, icons, all UI elements are "jumping"/"moving" up and down. But because it only appears on resizing windows I did not mention it before. Window resizing is something one usually does not all the time. And as long the UI does not start "moving" by itself - I can live with this UI rendering issue. Maybe it gets fixed by some day by some qt update without any taken actions.

Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:20 pm

what is the opinion about solution suggested in my previous post

infabo · Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:23 pm

there is an option to disable fractional scaling for winbox, you will then have to use winbox built-in zoom to make it bigger, but there will be no scaling issues due to Windows problems

That sounds like a solution. I would appreciate having this option to observe how it behaves.

CGGXANNX · Thu Jan 30, 2025 3:00 pm

Is it possible to give one more update to WinBox 3.x, where WinBox 3 would convert the content of the multi-line text edits (like the script editor main textbox), and make sure that content with newline separators only consisting of "\n" are converted to Windows' "\r\n" sequence before populating the textbox with that content?

Until now my scripts are edited and saved with WinBox 3 under Windows, and I can see with the /export command that the scripts are stored with "\r\n". But yesterday I made the mistake of editing an existing script with WinBox 4 and it now only saves the newlines as "\n". Not only does this produce unnecessary changes in my version-controlled exports, but when opening the content back in WinBox 3, the newlines are no longer displayed properly.

Either WinBox 4 should still store the newlines as "\r\n", or WinBox 3 should be updated one more time to treat "\n" as newline.

ghostyjinx · Thu Jan 30, 2025 5:14 pm

Very happy with the recent update to the software, I've transitioned full time to the new one.

Well done.

mszru · Thu Jan 30, 2025 6:09 pm

*) User interface elements: Update MDI title bar style
Please FIRE your designers! One more crazy design decision. All tabs have the same color and this small line on the top of a tab is absolutely inconspicuous and barely visible. Return back as it was before.

That was definitely bad design decision.

I use the app in the "Light Mode" and those tabs look really bad and attract too much attention with their bold font and white background. The active tab cannot be easily identified because of the way it is highlighted. Please return back the old design of the window title bar. There is no feeling that tabs are part of the title bar anymore.

Please consider implementing automatic column resize on double click on a right column edge, like in MS Excel. That is very convenient. When I try to do this out of habit, the column size decreases by about 1 pixel for some reason...

There is also misalignment between vertical lines of a header and data rows if you resize the column. I use 125% scaling in Windows 11.

Vertical lines misalignment.png

nmt1900 · Thu Jan 30, 2025 6:20 pm

It is even worse in dark mode as window frame is colored in almost same blue as this line in top of active tab...

Amm0 · Thu Jan 30, 2025 6:34 pm

Please FIRE your designers! One more crazy design decision. All tabs have the same color and this small line on the top of a tab is absolutely inconspicuous and barely visible. Return back as it was before.
That was definitely bad design decision.

It was a problem before to know which tab you were on. And, it's actually too subtle in dark mode too. Using similar blue for tab indicator as dialogs outline does look kinda dumb. Personally I'd like the entire active tab label highlighted in some way, not a subtle line at top that blends in window outline.

BrandonSk · Thu Jan 30, 2025 7:50 pm

This time more serious issue.
At least for me (both macOS and also Windows version) for devices that use VLAN offloading via switch chip features - all tabs are missing!

Example for CRS109:
In Windox 4 I go to Switch -> VLAN ... a new window appears, where I can only click New -> new window -> and specify VLAN ID and ports ... finally leading to an error when I click OK or Apply saying "Not supported for this switch"

In Winbox 3 connected to the same box:
Switch -> VLAN ... a new Window appears with total of 7 Tabs
(Tabs are: VLAN, Eg. VLAN Tag, In. VLAN Trans., Eg. VLAN Tran., 1:1 VLAN Switching, MAC Based VLAN, Protocol Based VLAN)

None of that is available in Winbox 4 (unless it got moved elsewhere). Features to work when I configure them via Terminal, so it is a GUI problem.

Cheers,
B.

nmt1900 · Thu Jan 30, 2025 9:45 pm

CRS112 had same problem but it seems to be fixed in beta17

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 10:05 pm

what is the opinion about solution suggested in my previous post

How does it look like? Is it some option that you will add to app settings? Or it's some kind of adding environment variable?
If first, let's try it and check how would it work. If second, I won't agree, because environment variables are global and affect other apps too.

-------------------------------------------------

Please consider implementing automatic column resize on double click on a right column edge, like in MS Excel. That is very convenient. When I try to do this out of habit, the column size decreases by about 1 pixel for some reason...

There is also misalignment between vertical lines of a header and data rows if you resize the column. I use 125% scaling in Windows 11.

Plus and plus.

There was already a suggestion to add some button to adjust ALL columns simultaneously, but having ability to adjust a single column by double-clicking is also often required.

And yes, there is a bug, when you press mouse button down on the edge of a column without moving it, its width decreases. In my case (150% scaling) it's also random: sometimes by 1px, sometimes by 2px. On 100% scaling it's always decreased by 1px, so it's not a scaling issue.

Regarding misalignment, I have this issue too on 150%. And this also randomly changes when you resize some column.
My suggestion is on the screenshot below. I think, everyone will agree that a header separator should be thicker than a grid line to have a good appearance. So, I suggest to increase separator thickness and align its center with a grid line. And please make a normal contrast color for separators as on my screenshot, currently they are almost invisible!
.

ColumnsAndGrid.png

teslasystems · Thu Jan 30, 2025 10:33 pm

It was a problem before to know which tab you were on.

Why do you say it was a problem before? In previous beta it was ok I think. I would agree that it was probably not super-contrast, but it was visible which tab you are currently on. But now...

quezhou · Fri Jan 31, 2025 3:29 am

Can the quick zoom and magnify shortcuts in macOS be changed? I'm accustomed to using them with the trackpad on Command, and it's easy to accidentally touch them.

KiwiBloke · Fri Jan 31, 2025 6:56 am

Me personally, I'd rather MT focus on the under the hood issues before progressing UI issues. Not saying UI issues aren't as important, but many of us are still waiting for issues like LTE signal graphs to be added, among other things - stuff that's been waiting to be sorted since day one. Most of us can use v4 in some capacity with the current UI. Time to focus on the deeper issues and return to UI issues later.

Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:04 am

teslasystems winbox already has zoom controls. It means you will have to use them to make winbox bigger or smaller. Not Windows zoom scaling

teslasystems · Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:06 am

teslasystems winbox already has zoom controls. It means you will have to use them to make winbox bigger or smaller. Not Windows zoom scaling

Are you suggesting to disable OS scaling and blow-out my eyes because everything will be very small?

Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:09 am

No. I already wrote this above. We can disable scaling FOR WINBOX ONLY. You can use Windows zoom scaling for all the other apps. But winbox will be small. You wil then use Winbox zoom buttons to make it big. It will have no glitches then.

teslasystems · Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:16 am

No. I already wrote this above. We can disable scaling FOR WINBOX ONLY. You can use Windows zoom scaling for all the other apps. But winbox will be small. You wil then use Winbox zoom buttons to make it big. It will have no glitches then.

I probably misunderstood. So, you can disable it in the next version for example, right? If so, ok, let's test it.

Amm0 · Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:48 pm

Can the quick zoom and magnify shortcuts in macOS be changed? I'm accustomed to using them with the trackpad on Command, and it's easy to accidentally touch them.

I actually run into this one myself on Mac a few times*... It's actually pretty "sluggish at zooming" when you it too. It really should be "pinch-to-zoom" on MacOS.

My bigger annoyance on Mac and "zooming" is that "Cmd +" / "Cmd –" for zooming control don't work – which is pretty standard on Mac. Since Cmd +/- is how'd I'd want to fix these "accidental zooms"*. In fact, most of my annoyances trend on keyboard shortcuts...

* and, yes, does seem to happen "accidentally" – in fact, enough that originally I thought it a workspace that causes these "random" zooming changes.

Larsa · Fri Jan 31, 2025 8:54 pm

Same here, "Cmd +/-" for zooming on Macs is pure muscle memory these days.

Guscht · Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:43 pm

Still no color-change for changed values...
Winbox4 is useless without this feature!

Screenshot 2025-01-31 203614.jpg

This is a edit, how I wish changed values would show up:

edited.png

DjM · Fri Jan 31, 2025 10:48 pm

At this moment the comment font is bold, the item name font (in the list) is not-bold (for example /interface print).

Can be the design changed to: comment font not-bold and item name font bold?

In case of longer list of items my focus is then more on text in bold in compare to text not in bold. I'm not using inline comments.

Thank you

DjM · Fri Jan 31, 2025 10:49 pm

Still no color-change for changed values...
Winbox4 is useless without this feature!
...

+1

For me it is not useless, but the described feature will make it more comfortable for me :-)

Amm0 · Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:59 am

In System > Scripts, winbox4 will not save a script larger than ~64KB, which may be reasonable. But the problem is the edit box will ALLOWED to enter >64KB – without any indicator your beyond 64KB in the edit control. The really nasty effect comes when you try to Apply or OK a script source with >64KB in winbox4 edit control... See that will NOT provide you ANY error message/popup... Instead, winbox4 (or like the connected router) silently restore the previously applied "source=" field to winbox4. Without any visual or other clues.

If you had made some change that pushed you >64KB... those would have been lost & not had ANY clue since dialog/error popup told you after the "OK" (or Apply). It was harmless in my case, since I was testing this, but boy that be a really good way to either lose code, since easy to think you saved since there is no error/popup...

Expected: System>Script>(Edit Dialog), should NOT let you hit OK or Apply if greater than the script size limit... which avoid the issue of a "false OK".
And, edit control's color changed to RED or something too when beyond limit – there are not enough colors used in winbox4 to indicate status/problems IMO...

teslasystems · Sat Feb 01, 2025 5:38 am

Still no color-change for changed values...

+1000

infabo · Sat Feb 01, 2025 8:31 am

Color change is one thing, it was there in Winbox3 already. But an improvement would be to have some kind of diff/change view collecting all the pending changes so one knows what to expect when "OK" button is clicked.

pe1chl · Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:04 pm

And: only values that are actually modified should be set when hitting OK. Those are the blue-colored fields in winbox3.
That should also mean that a value that is inherited from a template (and shown in the edit dialog) is not stored when something else in the dialog is changed.
Even better would be when inherited values would also be shown in a different color.

Sat Feb 01, 2025 7:47 pm

We can disable scaling FOR WINBOX ONLY. You can use Windows zoom scaling for all the other apps. But winbox will be small. You wil then use Winbox zoom buttons to make it big. It will have no glitches then.

When disabling the Windows scaling for Winbox only, may be also implicitly apply the system scale factor behind the scene?

teslasystems · Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:06 pm

When disabling the Windows scaling for Winbox only, may be also implicitly apply the system scale factor behind the scene?

Absolutely right. But it should be applied only on first app launch.
Or may be even better to use both system and user zoom to calculate it. I.e.: <Final Zoom> = <OS zoom> * <User zoom in WinBox>

Njumaen · Sun Feb 02, 2025 10:12 am

Could you please reimplement "Open in new winbox"?

Maybe even as a right-click or shift-click on "Connect" and "Connect to RoMON"?

jaxed7 · Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:34 pm

Not being able to open multiple Ping windows at once via "New Windows" button which is missing in Winbox 4 is a huge huge issue for me :(

mszru · Mon Feb 03, 2025 10:43 pm

Please revert changes to the tabs in window titles. Those new tabs are burning my eyes. Instead of focusing on the data in tables I stare at that bold header.

Beta 16:

wb4b16.png

Beta 17:

wb4b17.png

yacsap · Mon Feb 03, 2025 10:54 pm

I’m a big fan of the new Winbox, but I’m finding it a bit tricky to manage my hundreds of routers in Winbox 4. Could you please add a way to import saved connections from Winbox 3 to Winbox 4? That would be superb!

teslasystems · Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:03 am

Please fix the appearance of RadioButton interface elements and make a normal offset from their caption. Instead of being closer to its own selector, a caption is closer to the neighbor's selector. And it's very confusing. See the screenshot. First time I looked at it, I thought that 'none' was selected. But then realized that RSTP is selected. Who are these crazy designers...
.

RadioButtons.png

LK7R · Tue Feb 04, 2025 3:41 pm

Please consider implementing automatic column resize on double click on a right column edge, like in MS Excel. That is very convenient. When I try to do this out of habit, the column size decreases by about 1 pixel for some reason...

+1 doubleclick on clumn edge to resize column width acording to width of it's text content

File dialog when trying to save configuration via "File > Download", you have to select parent folder where you want to save your file. It would be more intuitive to use actual directory where user is at the moment as the directory where to save, not in to the directory that is highlighted by the user IMHO.

Not a big fan of current "subtle line on top" highligting of the selected section within current window. I do not mind the line on top, but i would preffer other sections to have different background color. Maybe a combination of Beta16 and Beta17 look as @mszru mentioned. Please see attached pic.

Winbox4 is getting there and i see it's potential (especialy in the cross-platform as I am using Linux) keep up the good work.
Thank you!

nmt1900 · Tue Feb 04, 2025 7:02 pm

Current solution has better distinction in dark mode, but in background window instead of focused window - because this blue line on top of a tab has almost same colour as frame of foreground window. In light mode it is equally bad for foreground and background windows. Better way would be to use bold font only for active tab and/or have less contrast on inactive tabs.

snap 2025-02-04 at 18.54.05.png

snap 2025-02-04 at 18.53.35.png

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 3:07 am

I was never using dark mode, just looked how it was in beta16 and... No words. Active tab was very hard to see. Of course, having this tiny line is better than not having anything at all. I think it's better to return to previous design, and make a normal distinguishable active tab color for dark mode.

But overall, better solution is to hire an adequate designer who will be able to create a good contrast interface where every element will be clearly visible. Instead of this stupid design, where separators and frames around column headers are almost invisible, scrollbars are almost invisible (and don't have arrows btw), frames of inactive fields are invisible at all. And now one more "genius" decision with tabs.

TenaciousD · Wed Feb 05, 2025 10:30 am

The app is pixelated on Sway (Fedora 41) with 200% scaling.

You may need to open attached picture in separate tab to see it.

infabo · Wed Feb 05, 2025 2:16 pm

@TenaciousD
this is how it looks at my system as well. Since first public Winbox 4 beta. I even mentioned this early in the topic, but all was said was to wipe off dust off my screen. Glad to see someone else reporting this with evidence screenshot. I think this needs platform specific Qt rendering settings tweaks. Especially this is both Linux platform. And on MacOS it looks sharp as your terminal window font.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 2:37 pm

And we are told that "Windows is very bad at DPI scaling compared to other OS"... At least, there is no such "pixeling" problem.

BTW, I don't see any scaling problems on Windows with 200% scale. Assume, it's because this scale is a multiple of 100.

eworm · Wed Feb 05, 2025 2:51 pm

And we are told that "Windows is very bad at DPI scaling compared to other OS"... At least, there is no such "pixeling" problem.

BTW, I don't see any scaling problems on Windows with 200% scale. Assume, it's because this scale is a multiple of 100.

I guess TenaciousD is running a wayland session. The problem is that Winbox comes without wayland backend, thus uses X11 to render. This extra layer causes issue on scaling.

Mikrotik, please build Winbox with the wayland platform plugin enabled!

infabo · Wed Feb 05, 2025 4:15 pm

I still use x.org - not wayland. So it is maybe not related to wayland especially. Rather a x.org thing when Winbox uses this x.org compatibility layer.

TenaciousD · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:08 pm

I still use x.org - not wayland. So it is maybe not related to wayland especially. Rather a x.org thing when Winbox uses this x.org compatibility layer.

Oh, X11 scaling is scary... :-) Is this on i3wm by the way?

My problem is different. In fact, i KNOW that sway and some other less popular window managers CANNOT properly scale X11 applications. Maybe I should state my problem as "WinBox does not support native wayland mode", but I thought it might be rude to jump one step from my IMMEDIATE issue, which is "Pixelated interface on my 4k display with 200% scaling when running under swaywm" :-)

Paternot · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:22 pm

And we are told that "Windows is very bad at DPI scaling compared to other OS"... At least, there is no such "pixeling" problem.

BTW, I don't see any scaling problems on Windows with 200% scale. Assume, it's because this scale is a multiple of 100.

Well, it is. Not our fault.
Tried different zooms here (from 84% up to 132%).
Didn't see any scaling issue now, didn't see before either - using at 84% zoom for some time already.

OpenSuse Leap 15.6
RTX3060
X11 / KDE
NVidia drivers 570.86.16
Monitors are 2 Dell P2421D, running native resolution (2560x1440) on each of them.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:30 pm

Tried different zooms here (from 84% up to 132%).
Didn't see any scaling issue now, didn't see before either - using at 84% zoom for some time already.

Are you talking about WinBox zoom or OS zoom?

Paternot · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:34 pm

Are you talking about WinBox zoom or OS zoom?

Winbox Zoom. Why would I use OS Zoom? If I want to change the size of my screen elements, I just change font and icon size. Much better this way.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:36 pm

Winbox Zoom. Why would I use OS Zoom? If I want to change the size of my screen elements, I just change font and icon size. Much better this way.

Then you won't see any of these issues. They only appear with OS zoom.

Paternot · Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:50 pm

Then you won't see any of these issues. They only appear with OS zoom.

And do You need it? I mean, there is Winbox Zoom, and all OS screen elements should be at an adequate size. No? Here they are scaled based on the monitor DPI.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 6:00 pm

Then you won't see any of these issues. They only appear with OS zoom.
And do You need it? I mean, there is Winbox Zoom, and all OS screen elements should be at an adequate size. No? Here they are scaled based on the monitor DPI.

Seems you were never using HiDPI screens. Everyone, who uses such screen, has OS scale more than 100% and it depends on DPI. Scale (%) = DPI / 96 * 100.

Paternot · Wed Feb 05, 2025 6:14 pm

A high DPI screen should not matter in this context. For the simple reason the OS knows the monitor DPI and adjusts (should adjust) screen elements accordingly. As per "high DPI monitor", we will need some definition here: how much high would be "high DPI"? I hate when the marketing team runs amok, and starts using meaningless terms. Mine has 122 DPI, for what is worth.

infabo · Wed Feb 05, 2025 6:31 pm

I still use x.org - not wayland. So it is maybe not related to wayland especially. Rather a x.org thing when Winbox uses this x.org compatibility layer.
Oh, X11 scaling is scary... :-) Is this on i3wm by the way?

Yes, i3wm.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 05, 2025 6:40 pm

There are 2 types of apps: DPI-aware and DPI-unaware, i.e. they either support scaling or don't support scaling.
If an app supports scaling, it adjusts interface by itself based on OS scale value. OS doesn't participate in this process.
If an app doesn't support scaling, OS is just enlarging its window and everything becomes blurry.

So, normally, OS shouldn't adjust anything, it only occurs in shitty or old apps that don't support scaling.

DPI is high, when it becomes hard to use it with 100% scale. But this term doesn't mean anything in our context. The problem is scaling. And scaling is just a consequence of high pixel density.

Larsa · Wed Feb 05, 2025 6:53 pm

Yeah, and if MT is using their own Layout Manager, scaling might not work as well if DPI awareness isn't handled properly. The built-in Layout Manager scales just fine on high-resolution screens. Try the example app "Thermostat".

Paternot · Wed Feb 05, 2025 7:05 pm

Just for testing: I did the OS scale test. Several values, between 100% and 150%. Did not see anything weird.

But there is ONE thing that may help: KDE only allows me to do increments of 6,25% - just in order to avoid scaling problems. I imagine this increment will vary with DPI and resolution. Makes sense: there is no way to show fractions of a single pixel. Well, not in a good way, one could do interpolation but...

But, yes. No problems for me - using either/both OS scaling and/or WinBox scaling.

Amm0 · Thu Feb 06, 2025 2:47 am

Oh, X11 scaling is scary... :-) Is this on i3wm by the way?
Yes, i3wm.

Winbox must be a disappointment to i3vm users... always organizing these overlapping winbox windows "manually" seems a PITA ;)

MacOS Sequoia has nifty tiling options, so I feel the pain.

+1 for some "Tile" options to organize the main workspace

And, I'm still on the theme taking more UI cues from Windows 3.1, which had "tile" in right menu"

teslasystems · Thu Feb 06, 2025 7:11 am

To normis

To test a behavior with disabled OS scaling, I've temporary set it to 100% in my OS and used internal WinBox zoom only. The problem is that internal WinBox zoom doesn't work properly by itself, because some interface elements are not affected by WinBox zoom value, they have the same size on all zoom values.

Until these issues are not addressed, disabling OS scaling will lead to bad result on non-standard DPI.

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Here is what I was able to find:

1. Internal windows don't change their size and position, when your change zoom value. In scenarios, when you work locally on one DPI and then connect remotely from another PC that has different DPI, it will be a huge headache. You will have to adjust all windows each time your DPI changes. Same, if you drag the app to second monitor with different DPI value.
When you increase zoom from 100% to 250% it looks like this:
.

WindowSizeIssue.png

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2. Some internal windows don't change their internal <Minimal Width> value together with zoom. For example, in interface editor window (dbl-click on any interface in Interfaces window) this value adjusts together with zoom, you may see that minimal width limit is higher on 250% zoom than on 100% zoom. But in Address List window, minimal width is same on all zoom values.

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3. Because of issue (2) and because minimal width is initially incorrect in some windows, you may see that buttons are painted outside of a window. The minimal width should be limited so, that all these buttons are fully visible inside.
.

MinWidthIssue.png

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4. Status indicators, collapse/expand arrows don't change ther size. Buttons and title field don't change their width. BTW, we are still waiting for fixing scrollbars overlapped with content, on high WinBox zoom this issue is much more noticable.
.

SizeIssues.png

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5. Lines don't change their thickness. I mean all lines (internal windows frames, edit fields frames, internal separator lines, grid lines, etc.). You have 1px lines on 100% and you have the same 1px lines on 250%. So, the higher DPI you have, the thinner these lines will look. They should change their thickness together with zoom. If a scaling factor lies in a middle of two integers (1.5, 2.5, 3.5 etc.), I would suggest to round it up to scale the lines. I.e. on 150% you should have 2px lines, on 250% - 3px, on 350% - 4px, etc.

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6. Workspace ComboBox also doesn't change its width. Looks awfully on 250% scale.
.

Workspace250.png

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7. If you open some window with filter and then increase zoom, the fields don't change their width. All values in these fields become clipped, they don't fit in the fields. But if you close and reopen the window, they are adjusted a little bit, but not always and values may still not fit.
.

FilterFieldsIssue.png

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8. Graphs don't change their dismensions either. As a result, you will see this mess with zoom > ~160%.
.

GraphsIssue.png

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. Columns selector drop down list has very small height. On 250% zoom it fits only 6 items. But even on 100% zoom it fits only about 10 items. It's very inconvenient to scroll up and down to find what you need. Please make items more compact vertically and increase the height of this list. Ideally, it should be limited only by main WinBox window height.
.

ColumsDropDownIssue.png

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Regarding zoom value itself. I see that the maximum value is 250%. For me personally it doesn't matter, but assume that there are screens with higher values, so please consider increasing this limit. Additionally, it has bad position in settings window, because each time you click '+' or '-' button, it runs away from the cursor. Only Ctrl+Scroll helps.

inazmul · Thu Feb 06, 2025 2:54 pm

File drag and drop not working, when I copy file to my PC not working. When I download then working. Is that only problem for me

abis · Thu Feb 06, 2025 7:52 pm

missing... 😢

abis · Thu Feb 06, 2025 8:08 pm

Is the "yes" option intentionally placed outside the line?

teslasystems · Fri Feb 07, 2025 6:56 am

File drag and drop not working, when I copy file to my PC not working. When I download then working. Is that only problem for me

I was reporting about this issue here and to support, also saw it in the list of known issues. Still waiting for a fix.

Cha0s · Sun Feb 09, 2025 2:00 pm

hire an adequate designer

Requirement: The designer has to be over 40-45 years old and not some kid that the only UI that has ever known is their moms' iphone.

And also hire network engineers that use Winbox everyday to do actual work to test the hell out of it. It's obvious that whoever gave the green light to move forward with Winbox's 4 design, they are not using it professionally, ie: spend all day on it solving problems and seeing all the regressions the new design brought.

Make the before touchscreens/smartphones/hdpi UI/UX great again!

Sun Feb 09, 2025 3:21 pm

hire an adequate designer
Requirement: The designer has to be over 40-45 years old and not some kid that the only UI that has ever known is their moms' iphone.

... do not forget glasses

teslasystems · Sun Feb 09, 2025 3:25 pm

:lol: :D :lol: ... do not forget glasses :)

Yes, it's a good requirement. I'm serious. A person with poor sight will definitely make a good contrast interface instead of these barely visible elements and lines that we currently have.

Cha0s · Sun Feb 09, 2025 3:29 pm

Yeap, poor eye-sight is a must.

teslasystems · Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:30 am

Found a bug accidentally. On the login page, if 'RoMON Neighbors' item is inactive, you can't choose it by mouse, but you can choose it by keyboard arrows or by pressing 'End' when this ComboBox is active. This leads to error and crash.
.

InactiveRoMON.png

Amm0 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 7:10 pm

While I like the feedback in "green bubble" (or red too) status that appear after a commit ("OK"/"Apply") ... they could use some attention in usability. I guess it's related to the "dirty fields" problem (i.e. two updates to same field, before winbox knows its changed) – which is sticky problem.

But the "green bubbles" acerbate the problem, since they popup just by pressing OK. I find this distracting since I just hit "OK", and expect that work & only see a notification if it failed. For example, if your perhaps OCD, you might click the "Apply" button a few times, just to make sure – even if unnecessary... that causes the "green bubbles" to stack in corner. Again in this OCD user case, the stacked notification only bring attention to something that just worked.

green-bubble-should-not-nofity-excessively.png

My idea is that "green bubbles" after OK/Apply, should only display if a current value – from winbox POV – changed. That is, notification has some client-side state... so it only popup if it read back newly changed value at least once after an update. The currently logic to always show it on every update is too much — but some "smarter logic/queue" in the notification might be a good stop-gap to problem that "changed fields" are NOT indicated well (colors!).

i.e. a "green bubble" tell me I actually updated something — and help with my general "marking dirty fields in dialog" complaints. The absence of the "red bubble" and remaining in same dialog already would tell you didn't work, so the OK notification is redundant today.

teslasystems · Mon Feb 10, 2025 7:39 pm

One more issue to my list of 60+ other issues...

The problem here is not just a green bubble, the problem is that v4 is actually doing the change, when there were no any changes. Just go to the log and you will see a new change each time you click 'Apply', it doesn't care that you were not actually changing anything.
WinBox 3 is smarter and doesn't do anything if you just click 'Apply' multiple times without actual changes.

rextended · Mon Feb 10, 2025 7:50 pm

We went from something that worked fine on windows and emulated well on others, most of the time,
to something that doesn't work as well as the old one anywhere...

Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:11 pm

Unless I misunderstood everything related to most programs I work with...

Apply = commit changes but keep window open
OK = commit changes and close window

No ?

optio · Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:17 pm

Depends which operations are performed by these actions, some optimizes such actions and do not perform changes if nothing is changed on UI.

teslasystems · Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:22 pm

Unless I misunderstood everything related to most programs I work with...

Apply = commit changes but keep window open
OK = commit changes and close window

No ?

Yes, that's right. But commit should be done only if there are actual changes. And v4 misbehaves with that.

Larsa · Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:46 pm

We went from something that worked fine on windows and emulated well on others, most of the time, to something that doesn't work as well as the old one anywhere...

Yeah, I feel the same way. I really hope MT won't retire v3 before everything’s up to par.

teslasystems · Mon Feb 10, 2025 9:57 pm

Yeah, I feel the same way. I really hope MT won't retire v3 before everything’s up to par.

v3 is already abandoned. They've said many times that there won't be any changes. Only security fixes. I afraid that some day, after updating to new RouterOS, it will show "Protocol is not supported"...
And I also feel bad with this stupid design in v4. For me it's like a toy currently, I can't use it, because it's simply unusable. The interface is absolutely unprofessional and I'm sure it was done by some iPhone lover...

Amm0 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:24 pm

We went from something that worked fine on windows and emulated well on others, most of the time, to something that doesn't work as well as the old one anywhere...
Yeah, I feel the same way. I really hope MT won't retire v3 before everything’s up to par.

Well, the "saving everything"/"dirty fields" problem and why winbox3 isn't going away are related... It's the L5 protocol (8291/winbox) used. The ISO L6 (i.e. winbox app) doesn't care, or at least it shouldn't....

So, unless they want break every API/REST/TR069/... integration out there, the core attribute scheme cannot change... so winbox3 (at least with the existing dialogs) should work until they want to break every other client app out there... Now where a future protocol and future device-mode/etc defaults to disabling winbox protocol, different question.

But 8991/winbox is stillmessage-based, without any "locks" or "transactions". Issue is the "two writes" at nearly the same time, and model is "last write always wins". But since message are not instantaneous... you can get into a state where YOUR winbox think nothing changed from it's last refresh ... so it may decide not to send update. BUT IF, in small time between when YOUR winbox got the values shown to you & you hit OK/Apply, possible some OTHER winbox/API changes the same value. So if it you "update everything" it keeps WYSIWYG for the entire dialog - without any potential for confusion of what specific attributes got updated. It's a decision, but Mikrotik is kinda in bind since they cannot break winbox protocol...

Anyway, why I suggested that notifications at least represent this "client-side state of attributes". Since it can take the ~0.01% chance an update happened that it missed. And it's same with numerous requests for some COLORabels of "changed"/dirty fields. Which could be based on client-side view of the attributes....

On the colors....perhaps 2 colors for fields: one for ones you changed & another color for OTHER changes from elsewhere since the dialog was opened. Again, showing some colors doesn't effect protocol things, if that was wrong because of "two writers" problems, like the notifications, it more visual clue. Both are regardless of how winbox actually config write decisions – which is different. This VISUALLY show the "multiple writers" in the dialog – or at least potentially – to then NOT make your changes....

toxicfusion · Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:58 pm

I'd give Winbox4 a B+ for college effort. Sticking with Winbox3 for near future. @Normis & Team. Look at Palo or other firewall vendors web interface for "guidance". Or simply hire better developers.

I feel Winbox4 could use some Palo design queues.

Why all this effort on winbox4 when you could instead just wrap everything within Web management? The web management can run inside a container on RouterOS...... We simply download new .npk file or container file for web management updates/changes. Then no worries about publishing or making operating system agnostic... .THINK.

Anyone else think or agree that web based management would be easier for them to design and build....?

toxicfusion · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:04 am

Yeah, I feel the same way. I really hope MT won't retire v3 before everything’s up to par.
v3 is already abandoned. They've said many times that there won't be any changes. Only security fixes. I afraid that some day, after updating to new RouterOS, it will show "Protocol is not supported"...
And I also feel bad with this stupid design in v4. For me it's like a toy currently, I can't use it, because it's simply unusable. The interface is absolutely unprofessional and I'm sure it was done by some iPhone lover...

Now you feel what I am regarding "ROSE". There needs to be better leadership and direction. This all could be done via a new web management implementation.

If MikroTik would of finalized their container support, why dont they "eat their own dog food" and build the new management plane to run within a container or .npk file.

Yes, I realize lower power devices such as CAPS cannot run a container. But the AP's can be configured with WebFig or a basic web management function and then the focus be on making the AP's connect to a CAPsMAN controller.....

Larsa · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:10 am

v3 is already abandoned. They've said many times that there won't be any changes. Only security fixes. I afraid that some day, after updating to new RouterOS, it will show "Protocol is not supported"... And I also feel bad with this stupid design in v4. For me it's like a toy currently, I can't use it, because it's simply unusable. The interface is absolutely unprofessional and I'm sure it was done by some iPhone lover...

It was kind of fun at first to run native macOS and all, but for production, we still use v3. If MT doesn’t manage to get a usable desktop tool in place before v3 stops working, one option might be to switch to WebFig.

On another note, I really hope MT considers bringing in some external experts for a while to set a solid baseline for UI/UX and help the developers sort out the scaling issues.

fseesink · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:11 am

Please be aware that your macOS version of WinBox v4.0beta17 has an Info.plist file that does not accurately reflect its version.

That is, currently in the file found at WinBox.app/Contents/Info.plist, you will find the lines:

...
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>0.1</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>0.1</string>
...

This indicates that the program is at v0.1, when, in fact, it should be showing v4.0beta17.

It is a minor point, but does impact both the ability of macOS users to easily discern what version of WinBox they have installed using Finder (where you RIGHT-click on a file and choose Properties, for example) as well as impacting any tools that might look for such version information such as any MDM offerings. I say this as I was looking to add WinBox to my Munki setup, which relies on AutoPkg recipes. But as it stands, I suspect that there is no way for AutoPkg to be able to detect a version change, as I'll go out on a limb and suspect this has been set to 0.1 for some time now.

Anyway, thought you all should know.

Amm0 · Tue Feb 11, 2025 1:19 am

That is, currently in the file found at WinBox.app/Contents/Info.plist, you will find the lines:
...
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>0.1</string>
...

Well, it matches the "my.example.com" as bundle id string, in same Info.plist ... although that's vendor is not visible in Finder.

But, actually, there is not a way in winbox itself to know the version.... It's not anywhere, unless I'm missing something. It used to clutter the title bar if I recall, so it not being there is GOOD... But it should be somewhere... The settings should perhaps show the version at bottom? Or even some story like "Get Info" in Finder working...

Tue Feb 11, 2025 3:28 am

Anyone else think or agree that web based management would be easier for them to design and build....?

There are pros and cons, but in general WinBox is better than a WebUI.

- WinBox is very lightweight on the host routers CPU.
- WinBox is much faster to navigate than any WebUI.
- WinBox updates very quickly
- WinBox allows Mikrotik to efficiently add custom features that would have large CPU overhead on the router if it were done with a WebUI.
- WinBox also allows for complete flexibility in regard to layout.

This is from someone who has spent the last 22 years using the WebUI's of major firewall vendors.

PAN-OS is a customized CentOS install, and each device has a large amount of local storage. Even with this, PAN-OS is very slow to navigate, configure and commit changes on. Mikrotik devices range from small routers designed for SOHO deployment right up to routers used in ISP's, RouterOS and its configuration system e.g. WinBox need to be high performance on all of these, I cant see that being the case with a modern WebUI like PAN-OS has (and it could be argued that PAN-OS is actually old and clunky by modern standards)

X0E2003 · Tue Feb 11, 2025 6:03 am

In Winbox3 there is option to filter by ports in [ /ip/firewall/connections ]
there were such filters: Src. Address/Port, Dst. Address/Port, Reply Src. Address/Port, Reply Dst. Address/Port

In the new version of Winbox4 beta they are not there, how can I filter connections by ports now?

vuducdong · Tue Feb 11, 2025 8:46 am

Dear, @Normis

In winbox 3.x version, the menu is horizontal (very convenient), then in winbox 4 version it is vertical (very inconvenient to use), each time you click the mouse, you have to scroll up and down many times to see it, while in winbox 3.x, you only need to click the mouse to view it immediately or at most one scroll time.

CGGXANNX · Tue Feb 11, 2025 9:55 am

I have managed to make WinBox 4 use Segoe UI on Windows. Everything is much sharper on my 96DPI screen and I no longer need to use the 84% zoom in WinBox. At 100% texts look reasonably small and very usable.

If you want try, just use the Font Substitution feature of Windows. Open Regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes and Add four string entries for:

* Manrope MD
* Manrope MD Medium
* Manrope MD SemiBold
* Manrope MD ExtraBold

with the replacement fonts of your choice:

winbox4-byebye-manrop.png

I am using Segoe UI and Segoe UI Variable Display Semibold as replacement 😊. If you don't like the Terminal Font, it's JetBrains Mono.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 10:20 am

One more complain about interface usability. It's related to layout in editing windows mostly.

Just look at this screenshot at the end and compare v4 and v3.

First thing, when I see this mess with [+] and [-] buttons all around, I'm freezing like an old PC from 90's while thinking where I am, and what should I do to change something; [+] button is located on the left, but [-] appears on the other side... You may just accidentally click wrong [+] and you'll have to move a cursor to another side to click [-]. Even WebFig is little better in this.
In v3 there is not such problem, all buttons have an adequate layout and clearly speak for themselves.
Second, where are indents for groups like 'Limit' or 'Time' ? Group name and values are on the same level without any indents for values. Making them just bold doesn't help at all. Very hard to percept. Also compare with absolutely clear view in v3.
Third, this 'Enabled' checkbox... Well, it could be helpful sometimes, but return Enable / Disable buttons back! In WinBox 3, while testing some rules or any other things, I can just click a button in the window to turn it on or off. In v4 I should first check / uncheck this checkbox and then click 'Apply' button that is located on the opposite edge of a window. It's just ... I won't say.
Comments. Return previous editing mechanism with Ctrl+M shortcut! No need to do anything with current mechanism, just add a quick editor for comments as it was in v3, while saving both ways.
And finally, move 'New WinBox' button to its legal place and return 'Exit' button also. It's unhandy, when this button is located somewhere on the top.

This interface is a disaster. And all these complains are not about tastes or personal preferences, they are about convenience and usability.
.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 10:43 am

In winbox 3.x version, the menu is horizontal (very convenient), then in winbox 4 version it is vertical (very inconvenient to use)

What menu are you talking about?

rextended · Tue Feb 11, 2025 11:27 am

v4 Menu on the right, v3 Tabs on top...

v3 is more clear.
For example is clear separation between connection limits and other subsection, on v4 is all grouped together.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 11:38 am

Oh, it's what they call "anchors" now. I doubt that they will return to tabs, but I would agree that having them on top is much more convenient.

infabo · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:00 pm

@teslasystems you have a good sense for usability. Mikrotik user interface designers should look at your side-by-side view and learn from these mistakes.

Cha0s · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:50 pm

@teslasystems you have a good sense for usability. Mikrotik user interface designers should look at your side-by-side view and learn from these mistakes.

All they have to do, is copy winbox3 UI menu for menu, tab for tab, window for window.
They already had perfection when in comes to productivity and they've completely ruined it just for "better" looks.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:54 pm

Thanks for support :)
Sometimes I think I'm alone with that, because I don't see these complains very often. May be this interface is ok for an average home user (though, for home user web interface is enough), but when you spend a whole day in WinBox sometimes, it's unusable.

rextended · Tue Feb 11, 2025 1:12 pm

@teslasystems Probably because there are many like me who when they see this new little toy for fun of someone turn away and hope that the v3 lasts as long as possible...

The transition from v6 to v7 didn't teach him anything...

First you do something identical to v3, with the same features and aspect, for all platoforms, then maybe you improve it.

It almost seems like the incentive to work on something comes out only if it's something new against those who work on it.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 3:17 pm

I feel the same, but this fear

I afraid that some day, after updating to new RouterOS, it will show "Protocol is not supported"...

keeps me to test, find the issues and report. More similar reports - more chances to be heard.

dang21000 · Tue Feb 11, 2025 8:57 pm

v4 Menu on the right, v3 Tabs on top...
v3 is more clear.

Like all others softwares.... tabs are always on the top.

toxicfusion · Tue Feb 11, 2025 9:14 pm

I have managed to make WinBox 4 use Segoe UI on Windows. Everything is much sharper on my 96DPI screen and I no longer need to use the 84% zoom in WinBox. At 100% texts look reasonably small and very usable.

If you want try, just use the Font Substitution feature of Windows. Open Regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes and Add four string entries for:

* Manrope MD
* Manrope MD Medium
* Manrope MD SemiBold
* Manrope MD ExtraBold

with the replacement fonts of your choice:

winbox4-byebye-manrop.png

I am using Segoe UI and Segoe UI Variable Display Semibold as replacement 😊. If you don't like the Terminal Font, it's JetBrains Mono.

Great work. I prefer this font and look over what MikroTik has done with the decision to create their own. They need to see this.

dang21000 · Tue Feb 11, 2025 9:30 pm

Still no way to have two sub-windows opened with the filter and the raw table... still need to switch between tabs.
I've just discover the option to hide tabs... what is the interest ?

teslasystems · Tue Feb 11, 2025 10:13 pm

I've just discover the option to hide tabs... what is the interest ?

This is one of a few things I like in v4. For example, I'm using only 6-7 tabs in 'Interfaces' window and simply hide all others.

ConradPino · Wed Feb 12, 2025 1:04 am

I started with RouterOS v6 Webfig then CLI and never caught the Winbox or Dude diseases.
If cancelling or postponing Winbox accelerates RouterOS v7 development then I vote so.

Guscht · Wed Feb 12, 2025 5:46 pm

Still no colour change for edited fields (4.beta17).
Still useless software!!

fischerdouglas · Thu Feb 13, 2025 5:44 pm

Is the use of keychains being considered in Winbox 4?

Does Winbox 3 or 4 has any kind of integration with Vault or Password Manager tool?

I mean tools like:

Lastpass

1Password

Bitwarden

Hashicorp Vault

Infisical

Configu

Amm0 · Fri Feb 14, 2025 5:39 pm

In 7.18beta, there is:

*) system - added option to list and install available packages (after using "check-for-updates");

Perhaps WinBox4, should have some direct "Refresh Package List" (or something) on the main /system/package dialog's right-side actions. In WinBox3, the top-bar actions are already crowded...but WinBox4's right-side bar there is room. If y'all going to be taking screen real estate with the right side actions/configuration, you should use it. ;)

What be interesting is using the a dialog right-side to "promote" some more critical sub-menu setting to the main dialog. For example, a drop-down for channel= in the main System>Package in the side-bar to allow quick selection of channel — or just to know what channel is being used without going into another dialog.

dse · Fri Feb 14, 2025 5:43 pm

I have managed to make WinBox 4 use Segoe UI on Windows. Everything is much sharper on my 96DPI screen and I no longer need to use the 84% zoom in WinBox. At 100% texts look reasonably small and very usable.

If you want try, just use the Font Substitution feature of Windows. Open Regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes and Add four string entries for:

Thank you very much for finding an elegant solution with the problem of "rip my eyes out" fonts in the WinBox4!

Amm0 · Fri Feb 14, 2025 6:46 pm

And think of all the discussion that must have gone into the font selection at Mikrotik... just wasted in a second with RegEdit. But someone thought about the fonts there, i.e. ligatures (and letters like 4's) generally match between Manrope and JetBrains Mono - . And the mono font renders script arrays just beautifully.

But I just don't think MT got to the end of the movie Helvetica, which wiki suggests:

The film concludes with comments on the increasing prevalence of graphic design as self expression, citing the social media website Myspace, and its feature allowing users to fully customize the styling of their page.

CGGXANNX · Fri Feb 14, 2025 7:19 pm

Jetbrains Mono is a high-quality font and looks great on 96 DPI (Windows 100%). However, when I previously had to use the 84% zoom level then it too was too small in the terminal.

With the font hack and zoom level at 100% the texts in WinBox 4 now suit me very well (I keep Jetbrains Mono for the Terminal). And I was finally able to keep the program open on my Desktop in the past few days. Didn't find the need to open WinBox 3 during that time anymore. Now I pray that the next update won't mess up with this newfound "balance".

teslasystems · Fri Feb 14, 2025 7:23 pm

I haven't had issues with default WinBox 4 font on my 150% display, but on 100% it looks very bad in some places. One of such places is Tabs. 'e' letter looks very bad, almost like 'o' with dash in the middle.

fseesink · Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:05 am

That is, currently in the file found at WinBox.app/Contents/Info.plist, you will find the lines:
...
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>0.1</string>
...
Well, it matches the "my.example.com" as bundle id string, in same Info.plist ... although that's vendor is not visible in Finder.

But, actually, there is not a way in winbox itself to know the version.... It's not anywhere, unless I'm missing something. It used to clutter the title bar if I recall, so it not being there is GOOD... But it should be somewhere... The settings should perhaps show the version at bottom? Or even some story like "Get Info" in Finder working...

Actually, you point out another issue: the CFBundleIdentifier is not set properly either. But as you note, that one doesn't show up visually in Finder. But it is supposed to point at the executable file launched (in this case, the WinBox exe located at /Applications/WinBox.app/Contents/MacOS/WinBox) by the application when a user double-clicks on it. There are other settings which could also be applied, but of the ones currently in the Info.plist, those two definitely should be adjusted.

My only reason for posting was that it seems MikroTik is trying to make WinBox v4 be properly cross-platform. And to do so properly in macOS, setting the CFBundleVersion to properly reflect the app's version is expected, so that anyone doing a "Get Info" in Finder will be able to see what version of WinBox they have. (Even open-source cross-platform apps like NetBird.io do this already.)

To say "there is not a way in winbox itself to know the version" misses the point. That may be true. But the Mac version of the application is included in the Winbox.dmg file, and the website link to this .dmg file lists the version. So the developers know on the backend what version they are bundling up and placing on their download page. All they need to do is make setting that parameter in the Info.plist part of that build process.

Speaking of the version, I also notice that the menu for the macOS version of WinBox has no "About" item anywhere. That would be another pretty standard way to let users know what version they're using.

Mind you, my intention here is not to cause grief. It is to help make MikroTik's Mac experience better, as that will only help both marketing and sales. (And as a MikroTik user, I want them to succeed more, as the better they do, the better supported a product line I have to work with. Win-win.)

[Now on a side note, let me add this. The very name "WinBox"--clearly "Windows Box"--just screams "We only care about Windows users." And it has been a huge turnoff to those who don't like using Windows, making them feel like redheaded stepchildren for preferring another OS. For those who prefer macOS or Linux (and yes, that would include me), this app has always been a royal headache. And frankly, whenever possible, we just avoid it and use the Web UI, SSH, or use a console whenever possible.

Now I would not expect MikroTik to change the name of the app. It has been around WAY too long and has too much brand awareness. But making it function as a proper macOS app so that Mac users--who either are or might consider being MikroTik users--might be more inclined to use MikroTik can only be a good thing.]

Anyway, I was watching this YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d4s7cJ ... Z9&index=7) and the guy made it sound like MikroTik wanted feedback on things like this. So here I am. Not complaining. Simply offering feedback on the macOS version of the latest WinBox v4.x to hopefully make it better.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 9:44 am

What difference does it make?

P.S: macOS had windows before Windows existed and Winbox existed in Java as cross platform, before an .exe version was made, your assumptions are wrong

Amm0 · Mon Feb 17, 2025 10:11 am

What difference does it make?

But one could say same about pixels sizes... It's sloppy, and shows lack of build process that would set that. Now priority, IDK.

And, I guess you're never planning on putting it in the macOS App Store...

toxicfusion · Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:00 pm

What difference does it make?

P.S: macOS had windows before Windows existed and Winbox existed in Java as cross platform, before an .exe version was made, your assumptions are wrong

Seriously.... With this attitude no wonder the software quality is so bad. @Normis -- stick to hardware suggestions and supporting your hardware engieneers.

I agree, the info.plist needs to be adjusted with each release, and there should also be an "about" menu option. Head in sand by MikroTik.

This is WHY other vendors have gone to web based management that is "controller" based. The console management is thing of past.... Unless you're still using Cisco ASDM, or Check-point, Barracuda....

Yes, MikroTik is swiss army knife and the price to performance they're "heavy hitters". But limited by software QC.

fseesink · Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:34 pm

What difference does it make?

P.S: macOS had windows before Windows existed and Winbox existed in Java as cross platform, before an .exe version was made, your assumptions are wrong

Ah. I stand corrected then on that point. I did not realize that WinBox dates back to a Java version. For as long as I have known MikroTik, the WinBox app only existed as an MS Windows executable. And for folks not using Windows, there were the usual comments about using Wine/etc. Hence the assumption.

But thanks for the historical correction. Good to know.

That said, my points regarding the macOS version of WinBox v4 remain. Again, not trying to be difficult. Was, in fact, trying to help. And I was going to offer what little help I could here (e.g., testing things out on the macOS and possibly Linux sides).

But yes, I would be lying if I said your response, normis, and its tone make me want to provide any further feedback or help. I just hope this is not indicative of how MikroTik itself, or the MikroTik community as a whole, feels towards its users, as that would be disappointing.

__________
[Based on your previous post, I doubt you may care. But the rest of this post is to give some context as to where I am coming from here. Feel free to skip/ignore.]

Not that you care, but MikroTik has been on my radar for a long time. And I own an RB5009UPr+S+IN specifically because I have been looking to get into using MikroTik more.

This is my first foray into finally using RouterOS proper. You see, I have friends who swear by MikroTik (guys I very much respect like Nick Buraglio and Kevin Myers). And so I have been looking for an excuse to get something and dig into RouterOS. (Yes, I know I could download a VM of RouterOS, which I've done. But I really wanted to learn the MikroTik ecosystem proper.)

For context, I have been using a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite 3 (ERLite-3) for nearly 10 years now as my headend router at home. Other than its original USB key being crap, and the wall wart power supplies dying on occasion, the ERLite-3 has been absolutely rock solid hardware-wise. I can push 960 Mbps steady through this thing, and at home I have Gigabit fiber. This means it is more than capable of providing for my broadband needs still today.

So it is hard to justify replacing it when it still works. And in fact I have a spare unit as well, making it even more of a challenge to justify replacing it. (Originally purchased for my mother-in-law, a few years later I took that unit back after her provider replaced her all-in-one NAT/WiFi router with a newer unit that could not be configured in bridge mode. So my original reason for deploying it there--so I could remote directly into it--was over. This spare unit now sits with a power supply in my closet, ready to swap either part into place should the running unit die.)

And EdgeOS, itself a fork of VyattaOS, which itself bases its CLI on JunOS, is one pretty slick NOS. I happen to really like the JunOS interface. Combine that ERLite-3 with two UniFi UAC AP Pros, a 24-port UniFi PoE switch, and another 8-port UniFi PoE switch, I have basically been a Ubiquiti user for some time. I use the UniFi Controller (what I refer to as "poor man's Aerohive" for those familiar with HiveManager, back before Aerohive was purchased by Extreme Networks and now rebranded it XIQ) to manage everything except the ERLite-3.

So how did I end up with my MikroTik? My wife asks me for a Christmas list each year. I have had the RB5009UPr+S+IN on my Christmas list for the past 2 years. I put it there as I simply couldn't justify spending the money on one when I had perfectly functioning gear. But if I got it as a gift...

Anyway, to my surprise, my wife actually got it for me this past Christmas. So I was like, "Wheee!"

So I have been spending time digging into this. And so far I find it quite a fascinating little unit. I was a little disappointed to see that it only takes 802.3af/at PoE IN on Eth1 (only supporting Mode B on Eth2-8). That was a bit disingenuous in the videos/marketing. But still quite a bit of kit for such a small unit.

And then there is RouterOS itself. Doing the initial setup, figuring out the Web UI, I then saw that WinBox v4 was actually rewritten to be cross-platform. So it was like "Oh this is nice." Which is how we get to me posting here about the macOS version.

Now I am still working on configuring this unit to see if I can match all the settings I have on my ERLite-3, as my goal is to swap out my ERLite-3 with the RB5009UPr+S+IN so I can really hammer on it fully. (Over time that ERLite-3 setup included IPv6 prefix delegation of my provider's /64s, port forwards, DHCP configs including pushing DNS IPs to specific clients using options, and some other tweaks, etc.).

Anyway, all this to say I came here as a "new user" excited to be using MikroTik/RouterOS and thinking I was helping out. That's all.

toxicfusion · Mon Feb 17, 2025 8:01 pm

IMO - MikroTik is on a leading path of their own destruction.

Their lack of vision, leadership and follow-through shows in their software QC. IE: building MacOS .DMG package and failing to address the basics. Also, their decision to create and use their own font. When another user here proved another font is much better for DPI and readability.

We're starting to live comfortable with another vendor and their platform [Camb.....]

MikroTik putting bad taste in mouth of new users and long-time users, supporters/operators. It seems MIkroTik is going to place themselves out of the "enterprise" market -- business owners and operators will look elsewhere. Given the development of "ROSE" [Why put enterprise in this name....] they're catering to home lab users or for third-world countries where they need cheap solution.

side comment: If MikroTik was serious, from the beginning... forked or made "ROSE" a separate project. This would have shown us better direction, as a side project - rather then show long-term users they're distracted with shiny new features to throw into RouterOS.

We're sticking with Winbox v3 running in Wine [Works great in MacOS] - until we're able to completely off-board remaining hardware, or next hardware refresh cycle.

eider · Mon Feb 17, 2025 8:43 pm

What difference does it make?

Answering seriously, as I assume that you did not expect to sound dismissive but legitimately seek information.

- It shows lack of care of attention to make software feel native to the platform you support.
- It makes it harder for user to determine version of application they have, in case they want to report an issue to you (they will expect it to be in same place as every other native app).
- it makes it impossible to publish it to AppStore, where majority of your home users will expect it to be.
- it feels sloppy and exposes lack of care in build process and might indicate that your developers are unfamiliar with the platform.

----

business owners and operators will look elsewhere. Given the development of "ROSE" [Why put enterprise in this name....] they're catering to home lab users or for third-world countries where they need cheap solution.

MikroTik has long cared for homelab users though and a lot of small businesses do things with RouterBOARDs that are not strictly intended (just read Wireless Networking forum). ROSE exists because there was lot of voices back in v6 days to have MikroTik expose more of what Linux offers to users.

fseesink · Mon Feb 17, 2025 11:54 pm

...
Answering seriously, as I assume that you did not expect to sound dismissive but legitimately seek information.

- It shows lack of care of attention to make software feel native to the platform you support.
- It makes it harder for user to determine version of application they have, in case they want to report an issue to you (they will expect it to be in same place as every other native app).
- it makes it impossible to publish it to AppStore, where majority of your home users will expect it to be.
- it feels sloppy and exposes lack of care in build process and might indicate that your developers are unfamiliar with the platform.

Yes, this reminded me. I meant to add this. When you asked, normis, "what difference does it make?", followed later by "there is not a way in winbox itself to know the version", I meant to say that it makes a HUGE difference for macOS users (though I suspect this would be true for anyone really).

Any time security/vulnerability alerts come out for software (and let's be honest, WinBox has not exactly been immune to these), the first thing someone is going to do is check which version they are currently using to see if they need to update. How is anyone on a Mac (and from the sound of it, possibly on Windows and Linux, too?) expected to properly maintain their installation of WinBox v4.x if they don't even know what version they currently have installed?

And for macOS, this information is typically found by doing a "Get Info" on the app or looking at its "About" page. And the former, which gets its info from that CFBundleVersion value in the Info.plist file, is what any software like macOS' System Information, JAMF, Munki, FileWave, and others use to maintain systems and update them.

[As I originally posted, it was my Munki setup which tipped me off to this in the first place. I created a recipe to pull down the latest WinBox, and Munki reported it had done so, saying it had downloaded "v0.1". This made me go "???" and start looking. Because I know that if Munki can't determine an app's version, then it has no way of knowing whether a new version has been released.]

There are next to no macOS apps I use that do not indicate their version clearly somewhere. All show this via "Get Info". Most also have an 'About' page. Whether typical paid apps, apps on the Mac App Store, or open source, they all show this properly. Everything from 1Password, Calibre, Brave, ChatGPT, Cisco Secure Client, Discord, Draw.io, Element, Espanso, Ferdium, Firefox, GNS3, Handbrake, LastPass, Lens, LogSeq, NetBird, OBS, Obsidian, Rancher Desktop, Signal, Skype, Slack, Syncthing, Transmission, VSCode, VLC, VNC Viewer, VueScan, Wireshark, ZeroTier, and Zoom (and those are just some of the ones I skimmed in my list that I know are also cross-platform). They all properly show their version info.

This is proforma stuff. Based on my understanding that this rewrite was done in C++ and uses the QT Framework, I would think that QT likely provides your basic scaffolding for building cross-platform GUIs that have each OS' expected behaviors/patterns, doesn't it? I mean, most do in some form. (Admittedly, it's been ages since I did any C++, and back then I was looking at using wxWidgets as I tend to gun for FLOSS projects and QT's approach was more native-ISH vs. truly native. Most recently I've spent some time doing Golang work and using Fyne.io, which also lets me build cross-platform GUIs while staying in a single language/setup.)

Anyway, again, my intent was not to cause grief. Sorry if I somehow came across as if I did.

Paternot · Tue Feb 18, 2025 2:00 am

Any time security/vulnerability alerts come out for software (and let's be honest, WinBox has not exactly been immune to these), the first thing someone is going to do is check which version they are currently using to see if they need to update. How is anyone on a Mac (and from the sound of it, possibly on Windows and Linux, too?) expected to properly maintain their installation of WinBox v4.x if they don't even know what version they currently have installed?

Well, Winbox 4 checks for update every time You open it. Besides, it shows the version (at least it shows to me, Linux and KDE) at the center of the top bar.

Tue Feb 18, 2025 9:16 am

I agree with Paternot above. I have never checked version of an app inside the executable, sorry. For any software ever. But we will see if we can include it for your peace of mind.

teslasystems · Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:09 pm

Can't run on Windows Server 2016. Wtf?

Regarding version, it's visible on login screen only, would be nice if you add it to the title bar in normal mode too.
.

WinSrv2016.png

eider · Tue Feb 18, 2025 2:41 pm

Can't run on Windows Server 2016. Wtf?

Regarding version, it's visible on login screen only, would be nice if you add it to the title bar in normal mode too.
.
WinSrv2016.png

Ouch, that stings. This puts minimum required OS at 1703 or Server 2019. SetThreadDescription is not available for static linking in 1607 and WinBox is shipped as statically linked binary. It would be possible to go around it by explicitly doing

GetProcAddress

but I am pretty confident that this is coming from Qt internals, not MikroTik code, so that makes it rather... problematic with no real good way to deal with it. I do not envy MikroTik developers on this and I would fully understand if they decided not to support it.

Tue Feb 18, 2025 2:46 pm

Yes, I'm sorry about that, but there were things that WinBox absolutely needed from the newer Qt version where the OS requirements are raised.

Larsa · Tue Feb 18, 2025 3:31 pm

Yeah, that also means Winbox 4 won't run on anything older than Windows 10 (ie, no XP, Vista or Win 7/8).

Amm0 · Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:35 pm

I have never checked version of an app inside the executable, sorry. For any software ever. But we will see if we can include it for your peace of mind.

You just can't stop the sarcasm can you? While, issue is understandable in a beta. It's a bug report - treat it like that - move on. No need to treat your customers who say "every other macOS app has a version" as a foolish report.

FWIW, It's not like folks are reading the `.plist` file... It shows up in macOS and third-party software may use it for policy/security. Windows Group Policy would do similar things I'd imagine too.

macOS-has-custom-columns-with-version-like-winbox.png

Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:39 pm

Windows Group Policy would do similar things I'd imagine too.

FWIW it does show in Windows 11

2025-02-18_15-38-04.jpg

maisondasilva · Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:58 pm

Any eta for export option?

teslasystems · Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:59 pm

Well, there are much more serious problems - design itself and scaling.

Amm0 · Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:54 pm

Totally agree. And keyboard-shortcuts!!!
Just tone bothered me... macOS version is a low-priority bug.

On the "internals", when using the CLI options to launch winbox, there does not seem to be a "silent" option so NOT log all the Qt/etc stuff when you launch it.

Now maybe in @normis's nihilistic view, no one cares about typo's either. Or, but the "connect-to" option says Connct - it should <ip>|<host>

amm0@macOS / % /Applications/WinBox.app/Contents/MacOS/WinBox --help
Usage: /Applications/WinBox.app/Contents/MacOS/WinBox [options] connect-to username password

Options:
-h, --help Displays help on commandline options.
--help-all Displays help, including generic Qt options.
-v, --version Displays version information.
--force-update Update process won't compare versions and will update to
latest

Arguments:
connect-to Connct to
username Username
password Password

  > /Applications/WinBox.app/Contents/MacOS/WinBox -v    
WinBox 0.1

ConradPino · Wed Feb 19, 2025 2:03 am

Yeah, that also means Winbox 4 won't run on anything older than Windows 10 (ie, no XP, Vista or Win 7/8).

Another strike against Winbox!

phascogale · Wed Feb 19, 2025 3:14 am

Another strike against Winbox!

YMMV

KiwiBloke · Wed Feb 19, 2025 6:37 am

Yeah, that also means Winbox 4 won't run on anything older than Windows 10 (ie, no XP, Vista or Win 7/8).
Another strike against Winbox!

Not really. Anything prior to Win10 is well and truly EOL now, and with the inclusion of Linux (a free OS which can be installed in place of Windows EOS versions) this has become even less of a problem. Most software I'm aware of these days doesn't support EOS any more, and why would they if M$ doesn't support them.

Cha0s · Wed Feb 19, 2025 9:19 am

Windows 2016 is not EOL for another 2 years.

Larsa · Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:30 am

Most software I'm aware of these days doesn't support EOS any more, and why would they if M$ doesn't support them.

Windows 7 is still used by approx 34 million users! 😉

Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:38 am

Windows 2016 is not EOL for another 2 years.

WinBox 3 is not gone

teslasystems · Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:53 am

Not really. Anything prior to Win10 is well and truly EOL now, and with the inclusion of Linux (a free OS which can be installed in place of Windows EOS versions) this has become even less of a problem. Most software I'm aware of these days doesn't support EOS any more, and why would they if M$ doesn't support them.

Very stupid logic, sorry. If OS is not supported by MS, it doesn't mean that no one uses it. And there is nothing common between supporting by MS and by developers.

WinBox 3 is not gone

It's not gone, but you stopped fixing the bugs. And the main question, WHEN it will be gone...

itimo01 · Wed Feb 19, 2025 11:24 am

Very stupid logic, sorry. If OS is not supported by MS, it doesn't mean that no one uses it. And there is nothing common between supporting by MS and by developers.

I think your logic is the actually stupid one.
If you run EOL Software that's YOUR issue not the developers.

Does Chrome run on Windows 7 or 8? No.
Chrome stopped supporting Windows 8.1 10 days after Microsoft.

And as we can tell Qt also stopped supporting EOL Versions (Server 2016 major support ended 2022. And "LTS" ends 2027)
Why would they support old versions of they have to give a worse experience to current versions?

Edit: updates 2016 EOL date

phascogale · Wed Feb 19, 2025 11:42 am

WinBox 3 is not gone
It's not gone, but you stopped fixing the bugs. And the main question, WHEN it will be gone...

You mean, like Windows 7 & 8, 10 this year.

teslasystems · Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:02 pm

I think your logic is the actually stupid one.
If you run EOL Software that's YOUR issue not the developers.

Does Chrome run on Windows 7 or 8? No.
Chrome stopped supporting Windows 8.1 10 days after Microsoft.

And as we can tell Qt also stopped supporting EOL Versions (Server 2016 major support ended 2022. And "LTS" ends 2027)
Why would they support old versions of they have to give a worse experience to current versions?

Edit: updates 2016 EOL date

If I run EOL software, it's my choice and it's not an issue. As it was already said, a lot of people still use 7 and even XP. But some ... bad guys (like google, qt and many others) stop supporting older OSes intentionally and artifically to force users upgrading and buying new products.
"worse experience" is an empty phrase that doen't have any sense in case of WinBox and many other software, there are no any super 3D graphics that is available only on modern hardware and software.

BTW, I have much better experience on Win7 than on Win11, because it runs much faster and doesn't have a lot of built-in sh*t and telemetry.

pe1chl · Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:14 pm

This is why it would be better to get the functionality of winbox integrated into webfig, so there is no issue with "platform" anymore, everyone brings their own modern browser to their own (supported or unsupported) operating system.

nmt1900 · Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:28 pm

Exactly that.
If we have only SSH and webfig, then we have only the vulnerabilities of RouterOS and these two protocols. If we add Winbox, then we have additional vulnerabilities and bugs of Winbox protocol and Winbox itself - and these can sometimes be exploited just by using older Winbox version where vulnerabilities are not fixed. First thing that comes to mind is that "sensitive data handling" bug which was fixed in Winbox 4 beta17.

Winbox has significant advantage in providing MAC-address based connectivity, but this is not a main way to connect to devices anyway...

teslasystems · Wed Feb 19, 2025 1:07 pm

Winbox has significant advantage in providing MAC-address based connectivity, but this is not a main way to connect to devices anyway...

Agree, and plus neighbor discovery. But when you have an empty router or need to change IPs, this is the main way usually.

I don't support the idea to leave SSH and WebFig only. And you won't get rid of WinBox protocol anyway, because not only WinBox itself uses it.

spippan · Wed Feb 19, 2025 1:38 pm

Totally agree. And keyboard-shortcuts!!!

as i wanted back in v3 --> viewtopic.php?p=980023#p980023

teslasystems · Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:32 pm

Not a major issue of course, but something is wrong with buttons categorization.

What 'Inbox' button is doing under 'Configuration' ? It's just an SMS list, it doesn't have anything common with configuration.
Same in 'Disks' window, for example. What 'Test Disks' button is doing under 'Configuration' ? It's an Action.

Weird stuff...
.

BadCategory.png

Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:36 pm

Webfig is closer to Winbox than it has ever been before, we are actively working on it and it will keep receiving updates. The only thing that is most likely impossible is MAC connection.

Keyboard shortcuts have already been added in latest beta, some of them. More will be added in next versions.

Don't forget, this is all still a Beta.

P.S: about vulnerabilities, I must always mention NEVER OPEN ADMIN INTERFACE TO UNTRUSTED INTERFACES

pe1chl · Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:46 pm

As I wrote before, there should be a separate (portable) application that performs the netinstall function and also can function as an IP->MAC connection relay. You start it when you need MAC connection and then point your browser at some port like localhost:8291 and you get the list of available MAC addresses and can connect one. It also does RoMON.
Everything else can be done in the browser.
An inbetween solution when the result would be too big to fit in a 16MB-flash router could be to have an application that connects to routers using an API protocol like winbox or even ssh and serves a beautiful WEB gui to a port on localhost.
Then you still use the browser to do the widgets and rendering, and such an application that only has to open some sockets can be extremely portable and OS-version independent.

Amm0 · Wed Feb 19, 2025 6:49 pm

P.S: about vulnerabilities, I must always mention NEVER OPEN ADMIN INTERFACE TO UNTRUSTED INTERFACES

You have to repeat it because it's not documented. Where at help.mikrotik.com does it actually say that...?

On Securing+your+router it mentions disabling winbox-mac and that it's. And it also suggests on same help page to:

We suggest you follow announcements on our security announcement blog to be informed about any new security issues.

So everything since 2023 must be safe then...

On WinBox help page, it superficially describes the security "features" - but no "risks" and no links that back up the features are considered secure by experts in the field (i.e. since not TLS, it not so simple).

CGGXANNX · Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:59 pm

Please keep developing native desktop apps. Even with the issues that I have had with WinBox 4 until now (many of which have been addressed), the experience was always miles better than any web-based apps. WinBox 4 was laggy (on Windows) at the beginning but still lags much less than WebFig. Try to open the Log with its 1000 entries and try to resize the "Topics" column and compare WebFig vs WinBox 3/4. I want my dialogs to open instantly, not with hundreds of milliseconds of lag and occasional blinking as the DOM needs to be built with JavaScript and rendered. WinBox is a huge reason for me to prefer RouterOS and MikroTik products.

teslasystems · Thu Feb 20, 2025 12:02 am

It's not native anymore, we have qt here... Only WinBox 3 is native and works much faster. In v4 there is a lag even when switching between tabs. There is about 0.5 seconds delay if there are more than just few items in a table. In v3 there are no any delays.

phascogale · Thu Feb 20, 2025 1:37 am

Native as in cross-platform without WINE.

teslasystems · Thu Feb 20, 2025 4:04 pm

Oh, and regarding shortcuts, return Ctrl+M shortcut and previous comment editing mechanism. No need to do anything with current mechanism, just add a dialog for quick comment editing as it was in v3. Current implementation is absolutely inconvenient, you need to do too much actions to edit a comment.

toxicfusion · Thu Feb 20, 2025 10:28 pm

Winbox4 is a joke, even in it's current beta form. Also with the snide remark comments made by normis on our end-user input and critique.

MikroTik should move to Web based management and or finalize a cloud controller design.. Get on the program. The MikroTik iOS and Android app was actually quite good.... That should still be used to configure hAP type products for basic residential users.

Does MikroTik even study other vendors products? Test and validate? Other vendors [Cough, Cambi.... ] buys other manufactures hardware to validate claims and prove their own software and hardware performance/features, etc.

Winbox4 should use already available fonts that are proven [high-DPI ready]
Colors, shading and contrast - terrible. Look at Palo Alto Panorama for guidance.
Qt4.... come on man.

All this development time would be better served creating a dedicated controller container we can run on our CHR, CCR, or capable routerboards. Alternatively, the container be run on our own hardware or a dedicated stick-type appliance [GESP size]. Then majority of MikroTik hardware [access points,routers] can be managed using the existing MikroTik API and protocols [mac-telnet, mac-winbox].

The MikroTik switches can continue running SwOS and be self-managed through their own web interface. Speaking of... when will we see switch stacking?

Why not better features and functions given to CAPsMAN, instead development spent on Winbox4...

dang21000 · Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:07 pm

MikroTik should move to Web based management

WebFIG is here since few years, and since 7.16 or 17, i don't remember skin get a refresh and lot of improvements ; i use it with pleasure now... except relogin page after F5.
I agree with you about winbox4, the software must use os native design styles/fonts... but keep the winbox/webfig design ; now, there a real identity between theses mgmt tools.

toxicfusion · Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:45 pm

MikroTik should move to Web based management
WebFIG is here since few years, and since 7.16 or 17, i don't remember skin get a refresh and lot of improvements ; i use it with pleasure now... except relogin page after F5.
I agree with you about winbox4, the software must use os native design styles/fonts... but keep the winbox/webfig design ; now, there a real identity between theses mgmt tools.

WebFig is still a bastard child. The nested options, instead of tabbed configuration options [Winbox3] is terrible. This same design aspect is now within Winbox4. Tabbed navigation for configuration is superior. Otherwise, need to rethink organization.

Since RouterOS 7 -- even UserMan has been "broke" for the web management. End-users still cannot simply produce their own batch vouchers without need to directly access the router.

Open Issues:
Winbox4 on MacOS - you're still unable to use "Return/Enter" key for connections. You have to highlight and then connect
No "About" or "Help" menu option for Winbox4 MacOS -- this should be standard with MacOS applications
MacOS Winbox -- New menu's open top left corner, instead of center. Please return them to opening in center
Fonts and DPI scaling issues. Use default OS system fonts/styles
Shading, spacing, choice of color(s).
Having to scroll within existing windows when performing configuration. Bring back tabs.

I still want to rip my eyeballs out when using Winbox4. I go cross eyed with the fonts, colors and shading. Lipstick on a pig.

MikroTik -- Look at Check-Point console UI, WatchGuard console UI, Barracuda Console....ASDM is even better.

MikroTik - look at "PatternFly" for WebUI design idea's -- I think it might fit with the existing Side bar navigation. We need a controller

The Winbox should NOW instead be a "break the glass, network discovery, NetInstall tool" and we move toward modern Web interface, TikApp, Controller.

za7 · Fri Feb 21, 2025 12:50 am

Wireshark and VLC are both developed using Qt as well WinBox4. So what is the problem?

teslasystems · Fri Feb 21, 2025 1:13 am

Wireshark and VLC are both developed using Qt as well WinBox4. So what is the problem?

VLC also has scaling issues...

toxicfusion · Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:03 am

Wireshark is an exception, as I feel it is more usable - given the fonts. Winbox4, we expect to be using it more frequently as operators; rather than proactivel.

This all boils down to MikroTiks care to software QC. RouterOS still has half-baked features implemented. Should we be soft on MikroTik that Winbox4 is "beta"?

MikroTik should be lazer focused on finalizing feature implementations, bugs and enhancements. Doing their due diligence of testing and comparing their hardware/software to other vendors. RouterOS is amazing feature to value -- but we bleed and cry for solidification of the features, documentation and support. Stop marketing certain products as "Enterprise" when there things are fundamentally broken -- such as their current identity.

phascogale · Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:22 am

RouterOS is amazing feature to value ... solidification of the features, documentation and support.

Do you see no tension between those statements?

It is Mikrotik's problem to thread that needle, ours whether to buy or not. I appreciate your advocacy for a still better combination, but I think it also a little unfair to berate too strongly a product declared and labelled as beta.

Jotne · Fri Feb 21, 2025 7:30 am

Winbox4 is a joke, even in it's current beta form.

Can you make it better? Do you now how complicate it is to get all correct? And how hard it is to please all? How much did you pay for WinBox?

TenaciousD · Fri Feb 21, 2025 9:02 am

Wow, just when I thought WinBox4 is starting to look really good, and when I started to daily-drive it...

It turns out, I am using an absolute joke! Amazing!

Sorry, I don't have anything specific to say, I just felt the urge to react to an overreaction (IMHO) :-)

Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:09 am

It turns out, I am using an absolute joke! Amazing!

So your every day is "Wow, what a day!!!" .... chapeau bas

teslasystems · Fri Feb 21, 2025 11:27 am

Wow, just when I thought WinBox4 is starting to look really good, and when I started to daily-drive it...

It turns out, I am using an absolute joke! Amazing!

Looks good... :D :D :D It was funny.

You either never tried to use it for a whole day, or don't do anything more complicated, than making a few clicks to adjust something. If you try to do more serious job, your eyeballs will bleed and you may even attempt to throw your mouse into screen...

I agree with almost everything that @toxicfusion says about WinBox 4. It's a toy and doesn't have anything common with serious technical app. It looks more like an entertainment app to attract some attention...

I'd like to make some suggestions regarding WinBox 4 interface and will post them next week for your judgement. Just interesting, if people, who use it more or less seriously, would agree with my thoughts.

Amm0 · Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:50 pm

Wow, just when I thought WinBox4 is starting to look really good, and when I started to daily-drive it...
I agree with almost everything that @toxicfusion says about WinBox 4. It's a toy and doesn't have anything common with serious technical app. It looks more like an entertainment app to attract some attention... [...] Just interesting, if people, who use it more or less seriously, would agree with my thoughts.

I don't agree. We can argue about goal/priorities/etc of the whole effort, and I have. But it's not a "toy". I haven't used WinBox3 in months. Other than a few aesthetics, I don't notice a difference other than not having to occasionally deal with some wine thing. Now I do have my quibbles (see 20+ posts here), but not it's not a toy and been super stable. That's unfair.

You may not like look or direction Mikrotik is ahead, that's a bit different. But I think WinBox4 is far above what you'd get on other platforms with some Bootstrap-CSS or some heavy-weight React-thing. The Layer2 connect is just such a useful attribute of RouterOS and winbox, which avoid more time-consuming L3/IP changes need to connect other devices.

I guess to me it's too much like WinBox3, but I think that's there goal. The only "big change" is the tab in dialogs changed from top to right. Now if you were a power-user of WinBox3, certainly muscle memory issues – but I don't WinBox3 is going away, so keep using it if you're happy. We can argue they should embrace MORE color - and borrow more from industrial control system i.e. RED/GREEN/YELLOW.

The fact the UI is same on all platforms, include web, is generally a positive "enterprise feature" – it means less training/docs/etc if UI same. Now customizing logo and color scheme, that is still missing on that front IMO. So they'll let you change the colors scheme one-day I'm guess... but I don't know how get more corporate than using "cornflour blue" 1. And the fact they have NOT add a bunch of obvious keyboard shortcut, is likely trying to align those across platform which isn't an easy task.

I guess everyone has there concerns. And it is a beta... but this "throw everything out" just isn't going to happen. They did likely need a new UI framework for stuff like Controller or perhaps more user-friendly WinBox-lite things in future. But my bet is the overall scheme ain't changing...even in future apps. Clearly they've invested a lot of time/money into the framework WinBox4 uses. And suspect new "apps" will use same controls, just different menu/dialogs/lists...