So I have an "MMO" where buildings are used to craft things with resources you give it. This is all done with text resources, meaning there are no icons for resources, everything in inventory is just text based.

When you click on a building, say a Lumber Mill, a dialog opens up showing you in a list box all the things you can make at a lumber mill. It also scans through your inventory and if you have enough to make something it'll show how many you can make like (2) Lumber. You click on what you want to make, select how many you want to make, and click the make button. The building itself is doing the processing and so a progress bar starts up showing the building is processing.

However, I'm trying to figure out ways to give the player the processed goods. I like how in minecraft the stove makes the product and you can walk away and it still does it's thing, and you can come back later to get it. However, since I don't have icons for my resources and they are all just text I don't see how that style can work. Just giving the item in your inventory even though you are not by the building doesn't seem right to me either. Having the player stay there while it processes also doesn't seem right. So not sure how to let the building do it's thing and how the player can come back to get their product. Any ideas given the limitation of just text for items?

several thoughts come to mind

Establish a warehouse building with an option in the production buildings to dispatch finished good to the warehouse (or character's home)

Have a mini-shelving system to store finished product next to each producer.

Use a time-lapse function to jump forward i.e. wait / sleep etc to completion of the processing

Hope these help

Inbox/Outbox sounds interesting. Where have you seen that before? Would like to see what that looks like.

Inbox/Outbox sounds interesting. Where have you seen that before? Would like to see what that looks like.

Age of Empires online - free on Steam uses this system for there manufacturing facilities - as a GUI though

Buildings can be trade-posts as well, you sell the resources, the building puts them to use, and later on you come back to buy a finished good you require(or immediately if the building was already stocked).
You can add a "reservation" and an/or "order", i just made it up so here goes:
reservation:you have sold all the required goods for a specific item, when it finishes you have a sheet of paper, which is your reservation to buy it cheaply, expires after a certain amount of time.
order:you have gives the required resources plus some money for offered services, the building crafts whatever you ordered from the required resources and you may return with the order(again a sheet of paper/contract) to get it for free.

all in all it does depend on how you want different players to interact with each other through the building;
- can a player own a building ?
- do you want to make it feasible for a player/small community like a village in your world, to just supply a building for free, keeping the environment(living space, is meant very broad) healthy by keeping the economy working all time ?