I just upgraded to 7.4 stable.

I see in web interface, that in ip/routes, there is no more drop down menu for choosing interface for route destination.

And most likely wont be. In typical configs where interfaces were set configuration was invalid.

But some valid configs can have interface as gateway (PPPoE, WG, ...) and being able to select it without typing the name was nice. In v6 it was possible. Did doing the same become significantly more difficult in v7? If not, it would be nice to return it.

But some valid configs can have interface as gateway (PPPoE, WG, ...) and being able to select it without typing the name was nice. In v6 it was possible. Did doing the same become significantly more difficult in v7? If not, it would be nice to return it.

This is exactly my case. I have some VPN connections and I route through this connections. The ip address could be even dynamic so only the name of the interface is usefull for routing.

It's not like you have thousands of VPN tunnels that you need static routes for so typing a name for few routes should not be a problem, or write a script that does that for you automatically when VPN connects. By not allowing to pick interfaces it prevents from making a lot of bad configs.

Just copy your PPP interface-name into "gateway" field, it will work flawlessly.

Just copy your PPP interface-name into "gateway" field, it will work flawlessly.

When migrating from previous config, it adds a % before the name. I assume it's needed also.

There is no need to add any percentage. Just write PPP interface name in that field.

By not allowing to pick interfaces it prevents from making a lot of bad configs.

Come on, this can't be serious reason. RouterOS offers plenty of ways how to shoot own foot (which is inevitable when it's highly configurable), and you can't get rid of most of them, because it wouldn't be RouterOS anymore. Making one of them slightly less accessible doesn't change anything. And at the expense of being also slightly less accessible for legitimate use. It's not a deal-breaker, but please at least find a better reason/excuse.

There is no need to add any percentage. Just write PPP interface name in that field.

I tried removing the percent sign and the web interface reports "Invalid value in Gateway" and refuses to save.

I see another problem. I went to ppp and changed the name of the vpn connection. In ip/route the name was not automatically changed making all the static routes through this vpn invalid.

See? this is why the previous behavior was far better.

There is no need to add any percentage. Just write PPP interface name in that field.

Ohh. I see you are talking about winbox. I barely use winbox. I don't see the need for using a custom program having a great web interface... well... it was great in 6.x versions...

By not allowing to pick interfaces it prevents from making a lot of bad configs.

Come on, this can't be serious reason. RouterOS offers plenty of ways how to shoot own foot (which is inevitable when it's highly configurable), and you can't get rid of most of them, because it wouldn't be RouterOS anymore. Making one of them slightly less accessible doesn't change anything. And at the expense of being also slightly less accessible for legitimate use. It's not a deal-breaker, but please at least find a better reason/excuse.

It's progress, not regress!
Why bother with fancy drop down menus and usability enhancements when you can simply use your keyboard, eh?

Just like routing filters. Why bother with cumbersome winbox windows, when you can use the glorious text box to manually type everything?

There's no way in hell you can end up with a bad configuration by manually typing stuff instead of selecting them from menus.
Duh! UX 101!

MikroTik is either deliberately trying to push their core user-base away or they are that much out of touch with what made ROS an OS of choice for many network engineers.

I agree that lately the basic user interface design of RouterOS is being destroyed by quick changes in v7!
This particular case may not be so alarming, but things like routing filters, the setting of VRF by manually adding @vrfname instead of having a dropdown list, the syntax used in BGP exports, it all is way off what made RouterOS so attractive.

Why not re-add the drop down, but limit it to just PPP interface types? These problems are caused by users selecting things like an ethernet interface as a gateway instead of a PPP interface. If only PPP interfaces appear in a drop down, it would be more easily understood that choosing something like "ether1" as a gateway would not work.

I think pe1chi nailed it. They are trying to turn around vers7 firmwares so taking shortcuts, that will be 'prettied up" later, so concur, patience on our part and stop bogus excuses on their part and simply fix them as you develop more firmwares. Any coder that spends money (coding person hours) taking away capability that people use is a fricken moron or suffers sheer laziness if building a module from scratch. The problem is its one of many small items and once it gets into an upgrade batch and tested, its going to fly into our hands............ Where is QA LOL.
They are busy ensuring the next Long Term Version 7.X is actually stable.

is a good idea remove this kind of problems, for example a router with 1.000 active pppoe users it has to show that 1.000 interfaces in a drop down menu

is a good idea remove this kind of problems, for example a router with 1.000 active pppoe users it has to show that 1.000 interfaces in a drop down menu

Perhaps they could just show static ppp interfaces (which are normally client interfaces) and not show any dynamic ones. I have rarely seen devices that have 1000 static ppp interfaces.

You don't have to click on it, if you don't like long lists. But then better don't open list of interfaces (Interfaces in WinBox menu). I don't have 1000 PPPoE users, but I tried quick test on 6.48.6 with lot of VLAN interfaces (just to get many interfaces), and showing them in dropdown in route dialog seems to be the least of it, quick and easy. But the list of them... let's say the testing CHR didn't always like it.

You don't have to click on it, if you don't like long lists.

Right, but there is almost never any case where you would want to create a route in the first place with a dynamic PPP interface as the gateway. The moment that dynamic interface goes down, the route no longer works and has to be recreated.

but you will be surprised how many users are setting dynamic interfaces in static configs.

but you will be surprised how many users are setting dynamic interfaces in static configs.

That is why the interface selection should be made from a drop-down list, where you omit dynamic interfaces, instead of have the user typing the name.
And/or the name of dynamic interfaces (of the form <name>) should not be accepted in static config situations.
Having a configuration layer like in RouterOS is a good opportunity to guard the user from making mistakes like this by not showing or not allowing invalid choices.
When this is removed step by step, at some point it will be more convenient to deliver a plain Linux system with many config files and an editor.

I'm not sure. The point of GUI in general is to make things more convenient, accessible, clear, even self-documenting, where you see everything you can have (WinBox always did that very well, except small missing pieces here and there, and that's the reason why I like it so much). Guarding against mistakes can be another thing, and it's a good one too. But there are different kinds of mistakes. If something is completely invalid no matter what, then sure, don't allow it and nobody will miss it. But this is not the case.

By removing the dropdown completely, you remove convenience, that's not good. Keeping the dropdown but removing dynamic interfaces may seem as good solution, but it's not like using dynamic interface as gateway is completely invalid, as long as system allows it and it can possibly do something useful. I'd agree that probably more people do it by mistake than intentionally (while knowing what they're doing), but it still doesn't make it invalid.

It's unlikely that I myself would miss ability to easily choose dynamic interfaces as gateways. And I'll surely survive even with whole dropdown missing. But I still think that "seeing everything I can have" is good thing worth keeping.

is a good idea remove this kind of problems, for example a router with 1.000 active pppoe users it has to show that 1.000 interfaces in a drop down menu

Perhaps they could just show static ppp interfaces (which are normally client interfaces) and not show any dynamic ones. I have rarely seen devices that have 1000 static ppp interfaces.

I think that is a good balanced tradeoff

but it's not like using dynamic interface as gateway is completely invalid, as long as system allows it and it can possibly do something useful

It would potentially work for a short while and thus could be useful during some setup or recovery session, but it should not be part of a stored static config as it will fail the next time the interface goes down/up.
The proper way to do it is to create a "PPPoE server binding" which will be static, and use that in the static route.

I know what it does, that it's temporary and can go away any second, if client disconnects. As such, usefulness of it is severely limited. Maybe we don't need it at all, it's possible. But currently it's allowed, and as I wrote, I like UI showing what's available.

I see another problem. I went to ppp and changed the name of the vpn connection. In ip/route the name was not automatically changed making all the static routes through this vpn invalid.

See? this is why the previous behavior was far better.

This is completely false. Interfaces are referenced by IDs, renaming it won't make the route invalid.