I got it working, Mr Sideview! I wish there was a specific example like this in the app -- but now this will do. I want to post it as a reference. In this example we want to automatically set the span based on the timerange because Splunk charting has a limitation of 1000 points that can be plotted (by default), we want to give the smallest span possible based on the timerange selected.
<module name="TextField" layoutPanel="panel_row2_col1">
<param name="name">host1</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 1:</param>
<module name="TextField">
<param name="name">host2</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">OR host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 2:</param>
<module name="TextField">
<param name="name">host3</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">OR host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 3:</param>
<module name="TextField">
<param name="name">host4</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">OR host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 4:</param>
<module name="TextField">
<param name="name">host5</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">OR host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 5:</param>
<module name="TextField">
<param name="name">host6</param>
<param name="float">left</param>
<param name="template">OR host=$value$</param>
<param name="label">Host 6:</param>
<module name="Pulldown" layoutPanel="panel_row2_col1">
<param name="name">customTime</param>
<param name="label">Select Timerange</param>
<param name="staticOptions">
<list>
<param name="value">-60min,now,30s</param>
<param name="label">Last 60 minutes</param>
</list>
<list>
<param name="value">-4h,now,1min</param>
<param name="label">Last 4 hours</param>
</list>
<list>
<param name="value">-24h,now,2m</param>
<param name="label">Last 24 hours</param>
</list>
<list>
<param name="value">-7d,now,10min</param>
<param name="label">Last 7 days</param>
</list>
<list>
<param name="value">-30d,now,30m</param>
<param name="label">Last 30 days</param>
</list>
</param>
<module name="ValueSetter">
<param name="name">customTimeSplit</param>
<param name="delim">,</param>
<param name="value">$customTime$</param>
<module name="Search" layoutPanel="panel_row3_col1">
<param name="search">
index=main $host1$ $host2$ $host3$ $host4$ $host5$ $host6$ | timechart span=$customTimeSplit[2]$ count by host
</param>
<param name="earliest">$customTimeSplit[0]$</param>
<param name="latest">$customTimeSplit[1]$</param>
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