There are mods that needs specific items and/or blocks from minecraft in their recipes.

For example buildcraft requires a crafting table in a recipe for a certain block. How would i do it that it accepts my crafting tables too? I know i can make recipes for all combinations, but when we need to do this for all mods, that would be too much work?

Can this be done using the oredictionary?

Yes, you can do it with oredictionary

http://www.minecraftforge.net/wiki/Common_Oredict_names

is set as: workbench

This assumes that the other mod is using the OreDict version of the crafting table in their recipe.

I was just going to keep my mouth shut, but like Draco pointed out, that particular mod must support Ore Dictionary for it to work. If they don't, you should check if the mod in question has an API for such things. Most of the 'bigger' mods have API's for their recipe systems. While this may be tedious, it sometimes can be the only way (other than ASM/Reflection/etc) to incorporate your item as an ingredient using their recipe system. You mentioned BuildCraft. The recipe-specific portion of their API can be found at https://github.com/BuildCraft/BuildCraftAPI/tree/9cd0add7220d6356299754bed75e1a7dfe09f74a/api/buildcraft/api/recipes

Just tested it with buildcraft and it seems not to work.

 

OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_oak));
    	OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_spruce));
    	OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_birch));
    	OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_jungle));
    	OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_acacia));
    	OreDictionary.registerOre("workbench", new ItemStack(TemBlocks.workbench_wood_darkoak));

Option 1: Make a pull request (or open an issue) will BuildCraft to get it changed

Option 2: Use their API to recreate the recipes

OK thank you very much

To sum up:

 

1) You may offer your new block / item as a generalized ingredient by registering with the "ore" dictionary.

 

2) You may write recipes for your new wonders using ore recipes that accept other mods' generalized ingredients.

 

3) You may add your own specific ore recipes to use generalized ingredients to make things you know about.

 

but...

 

You can't force your ingredients upon as yet unknown mods (at least not without some wicked post-init on-the-fly analysis and replacement of the game's recipes that could screw up everything in an installation you didn't foresee).

 

Good luck!