Cynthia: Glad to help, let me try to answer your questions.
The two apps work the same way, but the Web Framework version (CLI) adds a /django directory for the Django web framework files and the app's page templates. Pages (aka dashboards) in Splunk Web apps are in XML format, and are in HTML for Web Framework apps.
Here's a brief summary of the different paths to customizing a Splunk Web app:
You want to do light tinkering, like renaming the panels or changing their properties.
Use the drag-n-drop UI
You want to do deeper tinkering, like modifying chart properties that aren't exposed in the UI.
Edit the XML source code
You want to modify more in the Splunk Web app, like changing the format and layout of dashboards, maybe add links or images or other HTML type things.
Convert the individual dashboard to HTML
About that: This process turns the single dashboard (not the whole app) into an HTML file that you can edit, and you can access everything (searches, visualization, drilldown actions, etc.) programmatically using HTML+JavaScript. Drawbacks: the autogenerated code is verbose, no Django features, you can no longer use the UI editor (one-way conversion).
I think converting to HTML is a good learning tool, and useful if you just want to add HTML and don't need to modify the dashboard components, but personally I like a cleaner page (less clutter than autogenerated code) so I prefer creating pages using the Web Framework directly. Then you can also take advantage of the super simple Django syntax to work with searches and visualizations.
Actually, looking at the underlying code for each of these scenarios might help. Check out this comparison that shows the code for the same dashboard in XML, converted HTML, Django, and straightup HTML+JavaScript: Same dashboard using different components.
... View more