Hi @jpage4500 - sorry for the delayed response. I appreciate how fast you are to respond - being the 4th, the BBQ was at work and so was I!
I had always hoped you and he would see the synergy of connecting. While your app is the best in class for dashboards, he is the equivalent for tiles. His CSS is ninja.
You're basic understanding is correct. @garyjmilne uses extremely efficient and optimized CSS to do massive work for the user, and that CSS can get heavy given the limitation of HE. He keeps tiles under 1024 generally, but still relies on an external CSS template in certain cases.
This is the spot things break - in HE dashboards there is the css tab and HE lets us mod dashboard tiles there. Gary takes advantage of this and provides a css template that needs to ride in on the dashboard. In your product, there doesn't seem to be a way I can copy in a CSS template that can be applied. A 'user.css' file that carries into the HD+ dashboard - that I can copy paste CSS into. In Gary's template that file can be 10-12K in size.
With it, his tile optimization clicks, without it, certain tile stuff - the really cool stuff - doesn't function on your dashboard.
Whether by tile, or just a general way - I wonder if it was possible for your configuration to allow the user to drop in and tweak css - like some form of HD+dashbard.css for the dashboard itself, or a tile specific css template ala tile.css or something like that.
His tool is more a set of tools. For advanced users (the nice name he gives us folks that have donated) we have extended an feature set and a package of tools for creating tiles - snipped right from his app:
Tile Builder has five types of tile:
1) Activity Monitor: Generates a table containing data for activity\inactivity using the lastActivityAt attribute. These tiles are refreshed at routine intervals.
2) Attribute Monitor: Generates a table containing data for multiple devices\single attribute into a single tile. For example, all room temps on a single tile.
3) Multi Attribute Monitor: Generates a table containing data for multiple devices\multiple attributes into a single tile. For example, indoor temperature, humidity, AC\Heat status and weather in a single tile.
4) Rooms: Generates a graphical layout of Icons representing devices within a room. Icons change appearance depending on the state of the device.
5) Grid: Generates a Grid of Data up to 5 columns wide with freedom of placement for Data. Tile Builder Advanced Users only.
6) Thermostat: Generates an attractive alternative to the Hubitat built-in thermostat control. Tile Builder Advanced Users only.
I rely on his first 3 tool types to clean and condense HD+ to my needs. I wanted to condense further recently and created a Kitchen tile - a room tile as described above. His tiles are incredible. Efficient, beautiful, and effective. Have you seen his new Thermostat? omg. its a work of art! and you and he often seem to overlap your work in certain ways.
I recognize I'm a singular voice, but I suspect I'm not the only one that would love to extend his tiles into my HD+. I don't use HE dashboards - just yours. So I'm always looking to improve my environment with your amazing features. This just takes it to another level.