1.6.2-rc1

✨ New

• --epb-icon-shape-opacity: new CSS hook, 0 removes the circular shape behind the icon entirely. See CSS hooks.
• hide: [shape]: same result as the hook above, without card_mod — Card and Template, Badge/BadgeTemplate have no shape by default. ➡️ [Feature]: Configuration possibility for the icon background visibility #136 (@RkcCorian)
• alert_when.jinja: new Advanced mode (Simple/Advanced chip in the editor) — a Jinja condition replaces above/below as the trigger, returning true/false or an object overriding any of color/animation/highlight/label for that push. See alert_when.
• alert_when on Template/Badge Template: new, Jinja-only — neither variant had alert_when in any form before. No above/below/color/highlight/animation/label, so the object return is the only form with a visible effect.
• value_compact: Card and Badge, opt-in — abbreviates large values using locale-aware suffixes (1250000 → 1.3M) instead of the full number. decimal still caps the fraction digits, trailing zeros are trimmed. See value_compact.
• unit_position: Card and Badge, opt-in — moves the unit before the value instead of after ($100 rather than 100$) for currency-style display. See unit_position.
• value_sign: Card and Badge, opt-in — forces an explicit +/- on the displayed value (zero stays unsigned), clarifying the direction of a center_zero/bar_stack: { mode: net } delta at a glance. See value_sign.
• Editor: 2-mode chip selectors now render as a single fused segmented pill instead of two separate chips or a plain toggle - theme_mode (Preset/Custom), alert_when_mode/bar_effect_mode/hide_mode (Simple/Advanced, replacing their old boolean toggle), the new icon_animation_mode (Auto/Template, same replacement), and force_circular_background_mode (Auto/Forced, same replacement).
• Editor: hold_action/double_tap_action/icon_hold_action/icon_double_tap_action now stay hidden behind a "+ Add interaction" button, revealed one at a time — replaces the old "show all" toggle.

🐛 Fixes

• status_label's own Jinja pill stayed permanently hidden once alert_when.highlight: 'label' was configured, even while the alert itself was inactive.
• The editor's "Alert" toggle wiped the whole alert_when config (including a typed alert_when.jinja template) every time it was switched off, unlike status_label's own toggle — now preserves a draft, same pattern.
• Same bug on the "Markers" toggle: switching it off permanently discarded the whole watermark setup (type, thresholds, colors, …) instead of just hiding it — now preserves a draft too. bar_max_width's toggle had the milder version (lost a custom value, fell back to the 300px default) — fixed the same way.
• The editor's "Compact" toggle (density: compact) stayed visible and clickable with layout: vertical selected, even though compact density only has a meaningful shape in horizontal — toggling it on silently forced layout back to horizontal instead. Now hidden while vertical.
• Editor translations are now complete across all 39 supported languages — several labels had silently stayed in English since the day they shipped, invisible to the usual checks.
• Translations are organized more consistently under the hood, with a welcome side effect: a noticeably lighter download.
• A few editor labels were simplified or clarified where two different fields ended up showing the exact same text.

📚 Documentation

• The --epb-* CSS styling API is now fully documented. Most of it was built during 1.6.1's browser-compat CSS rework, but stayed undocumented — there wasn't yet a test bench to confirm every hook actually did what it claimed. 13 previously-undocumented variables added to docs/theme.md (icon battery-charging bolt geometry, bar_segments/progress-bar-min-width, the rainbow_full marker set, status_label pill colors), backed by a new CSS hooks view in docs/demo-dashboard.yaml — one card per --epb-* variable, each isolating a single override.
• graphic-effects-compatibility.html links (release notes + CHANGELOG) now go through htmlpreview.github.io so the page renders instead of showing as raw source.
• configuration.md updated: hide's shape option, alert_when's Advanced mode (with two new examples) and its reach onto Template/Badge Template, value_compact, unit_position, and value_sign.
• editor.option.hide.shape added to all 39 languages + template, using a descriptive phrase ("Icon's circular background") instead of a bare "Shape".
• alert_when.jinja's editor labels/field-helper added to all 39 languages + template; two demo cards in docs/demo-dashboard.yaml (plain boolean, and an object with a partial override).
• One more demo card for Template's own alert_when.jinja — reuses the same translation keys, no new ones needed.
• value_compact's editor label added to all 39 languages + template; three demo cards in docs/demo-dashboard.yaml (default, compact, compact with decimal: 2) on a new input_number.epb_demo_total_energy helper.
• unit_position's editor label + after/before options, and value_sign's editor label, added to all 39 languages + template; a currency-prefix demo card and a center_zero + value_sign demo card in docs/demo-dashboard.yaml.
• docs/troubleshooting.md: a version check that still shows the old one right after updating is usually HACS lagging behind the actual release — use ⋮ → Redownload to force a fresh install instead of assuming the update failed. ➡️ #137

🧹 Under the hood

• translations/template.json (the structural reference file, never shipped) no longer picks up stray real text — it should only ever hold placeholders.
• Badge's schema silently accepted hide: [shape] even though Badge has no shape to hide in the first place (Badge Template already excluded it) — now consistently blocked for both.
• Bundle down ~195 KB (-27%): the generated translations file used to repeat every key's full name in each of the 39 languages. Restated once, with each language's values kept separately — same translated text, same behavior, meaningfully less to download. Verified against the previous version value-by-value before shipping (9672 values × 39 languages, 0 mismatches). See Internationalization.
• A further ~32 KB shaved off on top of that: a long tail of internally-duplicated text — the same word or sentence stored separately for half a dozen near-identical fields or error messages — now shares one entry instead of a copy each (mode-toggle option words like "Simple"/"Advanced", the Jinja-helper hints, several developer-console-only validation messages). Purely internal; nothing translated changed.
• Net result: the full prod bundle (dist/entity-progress-card.js) ships ~109 KB smaller than 1.6.1 (-16%), even after every feature and fix above — verified by comparing the built file between the two tags.
• A handful of editor fields that happened to carry the exact same label as a neighboring one (bar_position/unit_position both said "Position", alert_when_mode/icon_animation_mode both said "Trigger mode") now share one, shorter label instead of two redundant copies.