Inventory Organization (especially crafting supplies)

[Niwashi]

Ok, so I've finally got a retainer who can hold my crafting ingredients while I'm out adventuring or gathering, but then I get to the point when I want to do some crafting and want to retrieve all the relevant ingredients from her for whichever craft I'm pursuing. Identifying which ones those are is turning into a major hassle.

Is there any straightforward way to identify which crafting materials are used in (for example) weaver recipes? Of course, I know a few of the basic ones that are used in lots of them, but there are far more ingredients in this game than the few whose purpose I can immediately recognize.

So far, I'm going with the time-consuming pattern of checking my crafting log, looking at the ingredients for the first few recipes, going to my retainer's inventory and looking through all the items there to find if I have any of those ingredients, then back to the crafting log to check the ingredients for the next few recipes, and back to check all my retainer's items yet again, and repeat all that several more times. That's a lot of effort just to switch over to weaver (or any other crafting class — I'm pursuing all of them).

[RhoddODduw]

If your on pc, just have your crafting log open while browsing your retainer inventory.

Select the recipes you'll be using and you'll have a list of the ingredients needed.

Keyboard shortcut for craft log is 'N' by the way.

[oceanlord]

there is no other way atm, every crafting material description is.. crafting material..
well item sort coming in 2.1 i believe this will help a bit

[Urthdigger]

One problem is that a lot of items are used across a variety of crafts. Generally, you use ores for the three smithing classes, logs for woodworking, textile plants for weaver, hides/skins for leatherworker, and fruits/vegetables for cooking. The problem is a lot of crafts use items from other crafts. For example, a lot of armor is made up of not just metal, leather, or cloth, but a combination of those. Generally, I find the sanest way to do it is to organize your retainer by what kind of items they are, and then craft nearby a retainer bell and take out whatever you need for your synths.

[Amiabelle]

It's a royal PITA, to be sure. I think lots of people have devised certain workarounds to help ease the pain but, frankly, inventory management is in dire need of a total overhaul.

That being said, here how I "organize" (for lack of a better word):

• Retainer A holds Ingredients and partially made food (pages 1-4), Fish (page 5), Potions and Misc (page 6) and Materia and More Misc (page 7)

• Retainer B holds Reagents (pages 1-2), Weaver stuff (page 3), Logs and stuff (page 4), Stones, Bones and Metal (page 5-6) and Misc and Overflow from the other pages (page 7)

It's not perfect and stuff still gets jumbled about, especially if there are more items than spaces on the page, but it helps keep things somewhat in order. And, like Urthdigger, I try to craft fairly near the retainers so I can swap stuff back and forth as needed.

I tend to go outside and in a corner, because crafting right AT the bell is too crowded and laggy.