Hey,
So me and @Oskiinus were thinking of a implementation of "sub-signs", so like small signs on normal signs. And because the idea of having the possibility of having places on a sign that players could simply click and set isn't really viable because making signs entities would with a high amount slowdown the game. So I came up with an idea, where the Sign GUI would need to be a bit changed by implementing something like the instruments in vehicles.

Here's my concept design:

So basically it's the same old Sign GUI but with new "Sign Component" elements, where the player selects a spot (one of the gray boxes on the sign) and then simply selects the "sprite" on the left. If possible, it would be nice if the "sprites" could be outside the rectangle aspect ratio, so it could support like long arrows, that you can see on the pictures lower:

So for instance the green sign on the left would have 7 (or 9 if "sprites" outside of rectangle ratio would be possible) spots for sprites (so basically the player could set "sprites" on places on the picture: D1 (left and right), H, A, CZ, and either the center of the arrows (for one long one), or two on the bottom and top (for a 2 part arrow))

I was thinking of having the possibility for extra text lines for sprites - so for instance things like this could be possible:


So the sprite would be align with the text. But It's really complex, so maybe for the future or maybe it could be done with a custom font if possible (even thou from my test it could be only the color of the text).

I know it requires extra work, but it's the only thing I came up with, which shouldn't really change how signs works on the outside (except of them rendering extra textures on top of them - so it would be SIGN - SPRITE - TEXT) and wouldn't require them to be changed to entities and cause more problems.

If they wont cause "chaos" when like 100 of them will be in one place then sure, it would be maybe even easier to manage because of different sign sizes in the GUI. But one question, would that be a new "(json) type" for "sprites" or would that be just plain signs ? (So like signs on top of a bigger sign)

So, I'm not opposed to this. But I also don't have the time now with getting the code bugs smashed and patched for updates. So I'm going to table this. However, I ask one thing: If signs were NOT slow as entities, would that be fine to have them with click-able arrows like how parts are with things?

That's a good question. Honestly, I could do it either way. Really all JSON is a way to define some code bits. In all honesty though, I'd say it's probably best if they're their own type, as then you wouldn't get conflicts where you can put sprites where signs go on poles. You'd only put them on signs themselves.

What chaos do you forsee with them being so close together?

Closing this given the relative death of sign pack creators in the mod, and the lack of requests from users for more sign customization. I think it's just not obvious IV has as many sign options as it does. If this gains more traction when we get to higher MC versions, I'll re-consider.