IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Not crafter's labels but ability for every player to put a label on items in their posession. These would then be displayed at the top of mouse-over baloons. Possible addition, allow chosing label's colour from predefined set (map markers palette seems just fine).

These labels are "local", meaning only person currently owning the item can see them. They are not persistent across trades but trading and then reaquiring an item within reasonable amount of time would retain item's label.

[tech talk]
Like usual, client-only modification. Every item in existence has an unique ID. So in order for this to work client would hold translation table between item IDs and lebels. This would probably best be an XML file in format:

<items>

 <item id="[itemID]">

   <label>[item's label]</label>

   //or optional <label color="[color]">[item's label]</label>

   <exp_time>[expiration datetime] | [null]</exp_time>

  </item>

</items>

Inventory actions trigger re-syncing of this XML file; moving items between player's inventories does nothing, destroying item deletes entry, trading item writes expiration date (a week seems reasonable), obtaining item scans the file and if item is found, clears expiration date.
XML file of course holds only items that we assigned label to, not all our junk :) Items past expiration date get removed on log in.

GUI for entering label can be re-using crafter's Write dialog box.

Feature in action:

Amazingly enough, I almost understood the pseudo-coding.

The only question I have is what would be the utility of this? Who would use it, and for what purpose?

Obviously it would only apply to things in the person's possession. I think the contents of packers and apartlments are held on the server (and I know that's true for guild halls).

I've been training Weapons Crafting and this would be good for me. I usually have to look at 'Info' to tell apart the swords I want to keep and the swords I want to sell. A bit of a bother but worse, once the 'Info' window is closed I still have a whole list of identical items. A mouseover box with user generated info would help me not sell the items I want to keep.

Also I sometimes keep several identical Amps/Weapons with different enchantments on and a mouseover box when I'm changing weapons would speed things up.

That is actually (and unfortunately) not true. Items in Ryzom do not have a globally unique identifier.

it's a client side extension anyway, because the existing item description can be used to store item name and/or an extra line for tooltip.