tldr: I still edit .rsc in a plain text editor. My typos show up at runtime.
Curious what everyone else runs.
10+ years of MikroTik RouterOS here. Scripts on more routers than I can count.
My setup:
text editor on one monitor
terminal on the other
copy-paste
production tells me about the typo
Not that nothing exists. One of the VS Code extensions was my daily driver for years — respect to the author. Tried the newer ones too.
Next to Python it still feels a generation behind. Or my expectations are too high. That's why I'm asking.
So:
What do you write your scripts in? Not what is "proper" — what you really use
Happy with it?
What bites you most often?
For me it's a mistyped property name. Often deprecated things, especially the recent ACME and certificate related drifts; Does nothing, says nothing.
p.s.: Undeclared functions/variables and wrong scoping is another daily pain..
Nikita
What do you actually write your RouterOS scripts in?
Winbox / WebFig terminal window
Notepad++ / Sublime / another text editor with a highlighter
VS Code with one of the RouterOS extensions from the Marketplace
@dang21000 that's the exact one I meant. My daily driver from 2018 to 2025.
The lab router part is the interesting bit. We keep spare hardware to catch typos.
@rextended HomeSite+ 5.5 from 2003. Best answer in this thread.
Serious question: what does it give you on big scripts that the modern ones don't?
@mrz fair — that one actually checks. Tried it when it came out. Solid work by Amm0.
Since you run it: does it catch deprecated properties too, or syntax only?
Deprecations are my worst one → the new ACME and recent certificates section drifts especially.
My problem is my setup, not the tool. Half my editing happens over screen sharing. Customer's desktop, customer's network. Asking for router credentials there is not always a conversation I can have. So I end up back in a plain editor.
Yeap, @biki73 true — the built-in one checks. It is the router, after all.
Save without quit is a small thing that costs a lot.
So everything that checks needs the router. On a customer's desktop I have neither.
Anything out there that checks a script offline? I have not found one.
@Simonej right, that is the one from the pinned thread. Colors and completions, no checking.
@rextended fair, and that is the test. Winbox 4 is a repaint, and a repaint is not worth relearning anything for.
What did HomeSite give you in 2003 that made it worth learning then?
2003 because that's the latest version...
I was already using HomeSite 4 on 1998 to create websites in .HTML and .ASP,
when back then there weren't many reliable tools other than your own head and writing the HTML directly...
Then I never switched to anything else, because the HomeSite text editor is fantastic, from my point of view.
When the need arose in 2007 to work with RouterOS and scripts, well, obviously I always used that.
@rextended so you brought it with you from 1998 — not picked for RouterOS at all. Did not expect that. "Your own head" is still the best checker on that list.
@ghostinthenet which highlighting file do you use for vim? Been meaning to set that up properly.
I'd say that keyboard and mouse navigation is painful there. Alt/option+arrow word navigation inside large script of 100+ is a UX nightmare. Especially after claude cli editors; I've sent feature request to winbox4 developers some months ago for a good luck, but i'm not even hoping anymore ^_*
I'm spoiled to have vscode plugin for AstroJS web framework with built-in LSP, this accelerates daily routines; RouterOS grammar however feels like a 007 top secret;
