How to handle custom containers properly?

[SeriousCreeper]

Hi,

 

i just started looking into modding and learning LUA. As a test, i created a furnace that has 3 slots - fuel, input and output. 

 

I would like to display some additional info on the UI such as a text or a bar that shows the remaining burntime, etc. 

 

So i made a copy of the container.lua and the containerwidget.lua with some custom logic, but i assume this would also affect any other container type in the game? And if i'd use an additional mod that modifies the widget (smarter crockpot for example) then those two might override each other? 

 

Would it be better to create something like a containerMachines + containerMachinesWidget (i plan on reusing this type of container for some other "machines" later) and use that instead? I sort of tried this but didn't figure out how to get the UI to open when clicking the furnace. 

 

How would you guys handle this sort of stuff in general?

 

Thanks!