Major rendering, responsiveness, and demo/docs upgrade

Highlights

New severity_gradient color mode

A new severity_gradient mode has been added.

• severity now behaves as true fixed color bands
• severity_gradient uses the same severity ranges as color anchors, but interpolates smoothly between them
• the interpolation model is more intuitive:
  • first band color is exact at the first band start
  • last band color is exact at the last band end
  • intermediate colors are exact at their band midpoints

Stable animated color scales

Bar color geometry was reworked so animation no longer distorts the scale.

This fixes issues where:

• severity bands visually stretched during width animation
• the above_target_color split wobbled around the target while animating

The bar now uses a static color scale with an animated reveal mask, so colors stay pinned correctly.

Major responsive layout fixes

A large amount of responsive behavior was reworked across all label positions.

Fixed and improved:

• left-label truncation and width negotiation
• above-label truncation and value protection
• inside-label collision handling
• stable card containment in narrow layouts
• stable bar alignment in stacked multi-row cards
• more predictable extreme-width fallback behavior
• value/unit fitting and truncation priority
• better behavior for negative values, long labels, and text states

Redesigned markers

Reference markers were redesigned.

Changes:

• old line/chevron marker system replaced with compact edge markers
• marker contrast is much clearer on similar bar colors
• peak and target markers coexist cleanly without fighting visually
• target marker, target label, and above-target split now animate in sync

Dynamic entity improvements

Dynamic scale/target features were expanded and stabilized.

Includes:

• dynamic min_entity
• dynamic max_entity
• dynamic target_entity
• target value labels
• above-target color highlighting

Demo / playground improvements

A full demo playground and screenshot board were added and expanded.

Added:

• live playground dashboard
• screenshot-focused dashboard
• helper/package setup for reproducible scenarios
• long-label tests
• text-state tests
• negative/min/max edge cases
• responsive narrow-width tests
• marker stress tests
• wave-driven animation controls
• selectable wave target for animating either current value or target value

Documentation refresh

The README was fully rebuilt and modernized.

Includes:

• clearer install instructions
• updated screenshots and animated GIFs
• examples that match current behavior
• dedicated docs for:
  • severity
  • severity_gradient
  • dynamic entities
  • target/peak markers
  • label positions
  • formatting and text states
  • per-entity overrides
  • responsive behavior notes

Notable fixes since v1.1.1

• fixed severity mode semantics
• fixed animated color band distortion
• fixed target split animation mismatch
• fixed marker readability and overlap presentation
• fixed left/above/inside responsive layout failures
• fixed unit/value truncation priority issues
• fixed negative-value fitting issues
• fixed target-label containment and alignment issues
• fixed text-state rendering inconsistencies
• fixed many narrow-card layout failures exposed by the new playground

Upgrade note

If you already use the original project, this fork is still a separate card:

• resource: /local/sensor-bar-card-plus.js
• type: custom:sensor-bar-card-plus

It is not a drop-in replacement for custom:sensor-bar-card.