### Data Sources Data sources provide information to cards on the dashboard. Here's how it works in a nutshell: 1. If a card is configured with a data source, once the dashboard has loaded, the web client will go through each data source and request information from the server. 2. A data source 'platform' on the server handles the information request, and returns html to the web client. 3. The web client then appends the returned html in the 'data source container' on the card.
##### For apps the 'data source container' is this area:  ##### For custom cards the 'data source container' is this area:  ##### What are 'platforms' and what can they do? Platforms are simply a python file on the server, set up to take in configuration data from the config.ini and return html back to the web interface. The platforms included with DM are found at `DashMachine/dashmachine/platform`. This is the 'official' set of data source platforms created for DM by Ross and the community.