Adding inventory to a prim box for storage

[Chey Darkfire]

While I've been in SL for over 12 years, there are certain subjects where I am a total noob.  I've been told by friends to make a box to put extra inventory items in to organize the inventory better.  I've known this is possible but I need help.  So, I have a box, but what do I do now?  Again, total noob to this.  TIA

[Lindal Kidd]

LittleMe is right...but your friends are wrong.

You don't have to box things up to "organize your inventory better". All you need to do is to organize your folders better. For example, instead of putting all your clothes in the Clothing folder, make sub-folders inside the Clothing folder. You might have folders for Lingerie, Accessories, Dresses, Pants, Tops, Shoes and Jewelry. And those folders can have sub-folders too. In Dresses, you might have folders for Casual Dresses, Dressy Dresses, Cocktail Dresses, Clubbing Dresses, and Formal Gowns. Don't stop there! Within those folders, there are all kinds of ways to organize further...by season perhaps, or color, or the designer, or the dates you bought them.

I used clothing for my examples, but you can apply this to everything. In your Objects folder, have sub-folders for Buildings, Weapons, Furniture, Landscaping, Vehicles, Food and Drink, Musical Instruments, and whatever other categories you can come up with. In Vehicles, for example, make sub-folders for Land Vehicles, Boats, and Aircraft. And so on!

Some people keep everything...when they unpack a box, they keep the boxed item(s) too, for safety. When they buy a dress that comes with versions for five different bodies, they keep them all, even though they only own one or two of the bodies. You can do these things, of course, but realize that it'll make your inventory a lot bigger. Myself, I toss everything I can't use. If I lose something, or buy a new body, I'll use the store's re-delivery feature to get a replacement.

And don't keep things forever. If you haven't worn something in a year or two, consider deleting it. (I'm really bad about this. I still have freebies from my first week in Second Life.)

But the only things I box up are textures. The reasons I don't use boxes as a general rule are:

• It's a lot of work to box things up, especially if you want to be fancy and slap a picture of the contents on the box as a texture.
• Out of sight, out of mind. Chances are excellent that once you've stuck something in a box, it will stay there forever.
• It's a lot of work to UN-box things, too. I did it once when I bought the stuff, I don't want to do it over and over.
• You don't need to expend all that effort just to get your inventory a little smaller. I know people who have inventories with well over 100,000 items, and they have no issues. My own inventory is around 77,000 items and has been for a long time. I do my best to keep it from growing TOO much larger, but I'm not worried too much about making it smaller.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Lindal Kidd

[LittleMe Jewell]

EDIT the box and click the Contents tab.  Drag items from inventory to the Contents tab.  If they are No Copy they will MOVE to the box.  If they are Copy, then a copy goes to the box and you need to delete the one remaining in your inventory).  After you've moved whatever you want to the box, name it as desired and then TAKE the box into inventory.  

You can even put that boxes of stuff into other boxes.  For example, one box for all pieces of an outfit and then multiple outfit boxes into another box.

[Chey Darkfire]

I do realize that it won't organize my inventory better....  12 years of inventory is a lot..lol.  I will probably do a combination of boxing and organizing.  Thanks so much for the help.

[Cali Souther]

16 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

 

• It's a lot of work to box things up, especially if you want to be fancy and slap a picture of the contents on the box as a texture.
• Out of sight, out of mind. Chances are excellent that once you've stuck something in a box, it will stay there forever.
• It's a lot of work to UN-box things, too. I did it once when I bought the stuff, I don't want to do it over and over.

^  That has been my experience.   I've also lost boxes ...   must have deleted by mistake,   losing lots of houses and stuff.  (shrugs)

 

[2Tessa]

On 11/14/2022 at 5:39 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

You don't have to box things up to "organize your inventory better". All you need to do is to organize your folders better.

This side of SL is what i call "Inventory Adventures" 🤣

First you need to disable "System Folders On Top" in your inventory window.

Second: How to rename folders in order to give them the priority you want, and put them on top of your inventory.

The standard sorting of folders is alphabetical. so AAA before ZZZ

We can change this adding a ! in front of the name, so ! ZZZ will appear on top before AAA.

In my inventory I have these main folders:

! Avatar
! Build
! Combat
! Furniture
! Games
! Homes
! Poses
! Tools
! Vehicles

If, for example, you like to have Vehicles on top you can add a double space after the ! so

!  Vehicles  (will appear before)       
! Avatar

You can further organize your subfolders.
My ! Avatar folder have subfolders like these:
!  Main
! AO
! Eyes
! Hairs
! Shape
! Shoes
! Skin

[Lindal Kidd]

Very good, @2Tessa! Both you and the OP should also explore the priority order given to all special characters. How do folders named !, #, @, $, %, ^, &, *, and ? sort themselves?

(The answer is, of course, left as an exercise for the student).