The manual versioned documents currently range from 7.24 to 7.26 (Stable to RC to Beta).
Are we also gonna have LTS documentation in the future?
Thanks!
LTS
NOT EXIST!
Is not clear that?
It simply doesn’t exist,
it’s not even part of the mindset of those working at MikroTik.
There is no such thing as long-term support (LTS) for a version of RouterOS.
You won’t find any 7.x.x release that remains unchanged AND supported, save for strictly necessary bug fixes,
for a period of at least 4 years.
At most, version 6 could be "considered" an LTS release by now,
given that it is outside the standard development cycle and receives only security-related fixes.
With all due respect, that's not the point I was making.
I'm fully aware that "no longer actively maintained" refers to the documentation and not the RouterOS release. But that's exactly the problem. The wording suggests that the documentation is outdated or unreliable, even though it may still be perfectly valid for that RouterOS version.
And since 7.24 has had three patch releases since August, what exactly does "no longer actively maintained" mean for the current stable branch?
To be clear:
- The default landing page points to 7.26beta without indicating that it's a beta.
- The documentation for 7.25rc, which hasn't even reached stable yet, is labelled "no longer actively maintained" and directs users to 7.26beta as the latest version.
- The documentation for 7.24 stable gets the same banner.
The issue is not whether a particular RouterOS release is still active. The issue is how the official documentation presents these versions. Labelling the current stable release as unmaintained while pointing users to an unmarked beta is misleading, however the individual words are meant.
The default landing page should point to the latest stable RouterOS release (currently 7.24), not simply the highest version number. Beta and RC documentation should be clearly identified and available as separate options.
This is easy to fix since it's standard Docusaurus behaviour. lastVersion decides which version counts as "latest" and is shown on the landing page. Versions above it automatically get the "unreleased" banner and versions below it the "unmaintained" banner. Set lastVersion to the current stable release, label the others e.g. "7.25rc" and "7.26beta", and all three issues are solved. That's also in line with the old help.mikrotik.com, which stated that the documentation applied to the latest stable version.
The banners could then simply read:
When selecting the RC documentation:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.25rc, a release candidate that has not yet been released as stable. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
When selecting the beta documentation:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.26beta, a beta version under active development. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
When selecting an older version:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.23. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
No ambiguity, no misleading maintenance warnings and no suggestion that documentation for a stable release is obsolete.
I'd appreciate it if you could look at the actual issue rather than the wording of a single sentence.
Yes, something got lost in translation here - I had the same impression.
@mrz
In Latvian, the relative pronoun *kas* could refer to both the version and the documentation.
Please check the AI translation...
Mākslīgā intelekta veiktie tulkojumi ir neuzticami, jo mākslīgais intelekts tiem piešķir tādu nozīmi,
kādu pats vēlas, nevis to, kāda tā ir īstenībā...
Šī ir RouterOS versijas 7.25 dokumentācija, kas vairs netiek aktīvi uzturēta.
Jaunākās versijas (7.26 beta) dokumentāciju skatīt šeit.
Šī ir RouterOS versijas 7.25 dokumentācija; šī dokumentācija vairs netiek aktīvi uzturēta.
Jaunākās versijas (7.26 beta) dokumentāciju skatīt šeit.
Otherwise, the implication in other languages (including Italian) is that it is RouterOS that is no longer supported.
@rextended
Vendesi letto per bambino di ferro con palle d'ottone.
Great minds think alike:
I think they write in English. And that text appears to be the default from Docusarus engine they use.
The issue is the "default" version is 7.26, which is the "latest" docs. The issue MikroTik has is if they improve the prose to some feature description in "Docs" category, it does likely apply to all versions. At least at this point, since it seems there still cleaning up text and restructuring things... the 7.26 is the "latest" version of the manual.
Over time, as the docs stabilize, the version selector will be more meaningful and better aligned between manual and channel. And today, in the CLI Reference, @mrz's friend Claude seemed to create a usable tool to see difference in commands between versions — CLI Reference Version Comparison | RouterOS Manual — which tell you what changed in the commands between versions better than selecting "7.24" at the top...
Should the text be improved? Yes. Should stable match the default docs? Yes. But it's not the end of world, since you likely should be looking t "7.26" docs since they have the newest descriptions, and if you care worried a command is new, check the compare-version. The issue is MikroTik is making more than version-related changes in the docs, so "latest" manual is still likely the one to check.
@rextended, "AI" isn't one single thing. Translation quality depends entirely on which LLM is used and how capable it is, and the differences between models are huge.
@mrz Here is my previous post in Latvian, so nothing gets lost in translation:
Ar visu cieņu, taču mans arguments nebija par to.
Es pilnībā apzinos, ka „no longer actively maintained” attiecas uz dokumentāciju, nevis uz pašu RouterOS laidienu. Taču tieši tajā arī ir problēma. Šis formulējums liek domāt, ka dokumentācija ir novecojusi vai neuzticama, lai gan attiecīgajai RouterOS versijai šī dokumentācija joprojām var būt pilnībā derīga.
Turklāt versijai 7.24 kopš augusta jau ir iznākuši trīs labojumu laidieni. Ko tad īsti nozīmē „no longer actively maintained” attiecībā uz pašreizējo stabilo atzaru?
Lai būtu skaidrs:
- Noklusējuma sākumlapa ved uz 7.26beta, nenorādot, ka 7.26 ir beta versija.
- Versijas 7.25rc dokumentācija ir apzīmēta kā „no longer actively maintained” un novirza lietotājus uz 7.26beta kā jaunāko versiju, lai gan 7.25 vēl nemaz nav izlaista kā stabila versija.
- Stabilās versijas 7.24 dokumentācijai tiek rādīts tas pats paziņojums.
Jautājums nav par to, vai konkrēts RouterOS laidiens joprojām ir aktīvs. Jautājums ir par to, kā oficiālā dokumentācija šīs versijas pasniedz. Ja pašreizējās stabilās versijas dokumentāciju apzīmē kā neuzturētu un vienlaikus novirza lietotājus uz beta versiju, kas nekur nav apzīmēta kā beta, tas ir maldinoši, neatkarīgi no tā, kā bija domāti atsevišķie vārdi.
Noklusējuma sākumlapai jāved uz jaunāko stabilo RouterOS versiju (pašlaik 7.24), nevis vienkārši uz versiju ar augstāko numuru. Beta un RC versiju dokumentācijai jābūt skaidri apzīmētai un pieejamai atsevišķi.
To ir viegli labot, jo šādu darbību regulē Docusaurus standarta iestatījumi. Iestatījums lastVersion nosaka, kura versija tiek uzskatīta par „latest” (jaunāko) un tiek rādīta sākumlapā. Versijām, kas ir jaunākas par šo versiju, automātiski tiek rādīts paziņojums „unreleased”, bet versijām, kas ir vecākas par šo versiju, tiek rādīts paziņojums „unmaintained”. Ja lastVersion iestatījumā norāda pašreizējo stabilo versiju un pārējās versijas apzīmē, piemēram, kā „7.25rc” un „7.26beta”, visas trīs problēmas būs atrisinātas. Tā tas bija arī vecajā help.mikrotik.com vietnē, kur bija norādīts, ka dokumentācija attiecas uz jaunāko stabilo RouterOS versiju.
Paziņojumi tad varētu skanēt vienkārši šādi:
Atverot RC versijas dokumentāciju:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.25rc, a release candidate that has not yet been released as stable. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
Atverot beta versijas dokumentāciju:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.26beta, a beta version under active development. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
Atverot vecākas versijas dokumentāciju:
This is documentation for RouterOS 7.23. For the current stable release, see 7.24.
Bez divdomības, bez maldinošiem brīdinājumiem par uzturēšanu un bez mājiena, ka stabilās versijas dokumentācija būtu novecojusi.
Būšu pateicīgs, ja pievērsīsieties pašai problēmai, nevis viena teikuma formulējumam.
While there could be, at least when reading casually, confusion about what it is that is no longer maintained, I also think that remark is completely superfluous.
At this time, there are only 3 documentation versions and they happen to refer to the current, development, and testing versions. But I think that when this system has been around for a while there will be versions both in the future and in the past.
It is not relevant if it is maintained or not, what you want to read is the documentation of the version that you are using. So if that is a stable version that has not been updated for a while, e.g. 7.24.5, you want to read the documentation version 7.24 and you do not care that 7.26 is the version being maintained.
I see your point about the newest descriptions being in 7.26, but I'd argue that's part of the problem rather than a reason to keep it this way. If an improvement applies to all versions, it should ideally reach the documentation for the current stable release as well.
You also say stable should match the default docs, and then that users should be looking at 7.26 anyway. Maybe I'm misreading you, but those two point in opposite directions, and that's exactly the mismatch I'm pointing out.
And none of this changes the main issue: the default landing page shows 7.26 without any indication that it's a beta. Most users will never notice, and compare-versions only covers CLI commands, not changed behaviour or defaults.
I suggested a simple fix in my previous post, using standard Docusaurus settings and including proposed banner texts. And even if 7.26 stays the default, each version can have its own label and banner, so 7.26 can remain the default but be labelled "7.26beta" with the "unreleased" banner, 7.25 labelled "7.25rc" with the same banner, and 7.24 shown without any banner at all. That's a few lines in docusaurus.config.js, no restructuring needed.
With a publishing pipeline that MT most likely already uses, this should be at most an hour's work, and probably much less if they've done it before.
banner will be disabled completely.
But if you want to argue to what part of the text "which" applies and that is not in line with your native language, then feel free to contact docusaurus developers, because that is default docusaurus banner on versioned docs.
@pe1chl, Great idea, dropping the remark entirely is even simpler.
But it needs to be complemented to also fix the landing page and the beta labelling, since the landing page would otherwise still show 7.26 without any indication that it's a beta. That's easy: lastVersion makes the latest stable release (currently 7.24) the landing page, banner: 'none' removes the remark, label shows "7.26beta" and "7.25rc" in the version selector, and badge: true shows that label at the top of each page.
Only built-in Docusaurus settings, no custom texts needed.
IMO, the most important part is that the landing page points to the latest stable release.
I guess the versioned docs are more geared towards having different (improved) docs of the same thing, than to have docs that pertain to different versions of firmware. I don't know what tools you have to maintain versions of the document, of course you would want to put improvements of docs into the doc for all currently supported routeros versions, but new features introduced in some routeros version should be only in that version of the document. That could be difficult to maintain, but pointing users of 7.24 versions to 7.26 documents "because they are maintained and the older ones are not" isn't very useful.
@MatiasMK88
Is it up to me? That’s just how things are.
Hi, rextended,
Sorry, you are right, I was meant to say that since current documentation have Stable, RC, and beta documentation. Would Mikrotik also add Long Term (not long term support) documentation into the manual?
Thank you,
At the release of 7.23[.0], the docs were help.mikrotik.com still. So I guess I view the new docusaurus manual.mikrotik.com kinda starts with 7.24.
Now long-term be covered the next time the bump it from 7.23 to 7.24+... So the situation resolves itself soon enough since long-term is still moving relatively often...
Thank you!
I guess the versioned docs are more geared towards having different (improved) docs of the same thing, than to have docs that pertain to different versions of firmware
Exactly. The versions we use in the manual mean "These docs were current when RouterOS 7.24 was released" and they do NOT MEAN that they apply only to RouterOS 7.24
Ok. It would in some cases be better when there was possibility to link documents to RouterOS versions, but I guess this system does not really support it. You would want to have some construct in markdown or similar where you can attach a "from version 7.25" to a paragraph that describes a feature or change introduced in version 7.25.
That would prevent people running 7.24 from trying to configure something that only works in 7.25. It also usually will display a bar beside things that were recently changed.
Anyway, it is already great that older versions are kept for reference, especially when this list of versions builds up over time. Now, a highly desired feature also is to put the change list of each version somewhere in the documentation for that version (or just make a general chapter with change lists of each version) and then when new change lists are written, try to provide a little more info in the version that is put in the manual, not only the one-liner put in the release topic.