Actually, both of your suggestions are good ideas 🙂
In the next version, we are going to adjust the Crafting Solver, so it will not destroy the solution after you press Stop. It will not freeze for another several minutes only to re-solve the same thing. With this adjustment, Stop button will behave like Pause. You will be able to do anything you want in the game – say something in the chat, or get more ingredients from your retainer – and get back to crafting immediately.
This will also increase Solver’s stability in some additional rare cases (like level ups in the middle of craft).
An additional chat box is also possible, but it will take significantly more time to implement, since typing characters in the chat would involve a different keystrokes emulation method. We will look into this and post more information when we have it.
Thank you for your requests!