Solar Panel and Energy Cell Issue

So I successfully made a solar panel and an energy cell and they work but I have two issues.

1) The energy cell will only take input from the top? I'm not sure if it's because the energy cell will only output from the bottom or if the energy cell can only receive from it's top side.

I followed the tutorial that was posted here by one of the MCreator staff and I used the guys procedure which is supposed to accept from all sides to my understanding. It's not.

2) Most mods use like this redstone indicator on the gui to show the power level, how do I do this? I figured out how to display the text but I want it to look more fancy, please help.