Purpose:

A general storage block to condense storage of non block items, and give them a placeable block form.

Function:

Adds a single block, the crate.

Craft it with a plank surrounded by four sticks.

Right click the block with a stack of non-block items to convert 8 of them into a Crate.

Right click the block with a crate of items to convert it back.

Automation:

Empty crate block has an input slot and an output slot which can be filled and taken from by hoppers.

When the block is powered,

if the input slot contains 8 or more of a crateable item they will be crafted into the output slot (unless the slot has a different type of crate, then they will be ejected)

if the input slot contains less than 8 items, or a non-crateable item, its contents will be ejected.

MISC:

The full crate is a second block, so no longer useable like the normal crate.

A crateable item is just an item that begins with "item." in its description id, this means some placeable items are still crateable, like redstone dust.

The crate holds 8 items instead of 9 as a means of balance (it's automatable but less efficient, so not a replacement for existing storage blocks).

A full crate can't be broken down in the crafting menu.

If anyone knows how to make a procedural texture based on an arbitrary texture input (color sampling or something) and use it as a background to reflect what's in the crate that would be nice, I may add a tile renderer in the future.

Crate - Generic item condenser