Google TV Launches Templates, UI Library to Facilitate Development of TV-Optimized Web Sites

In a posting on Google's dedicated Google TV blog, Friday, the company announced the availability of two new templates and a new user interface library that are designed to make it easier for developers to build Google TV-optimized Web sites. "We've created two template designs that are focused on delivering video content, but equally suitable for photos or other multimedia," the blog post--attributed to Google TV Developer Relations Team members, Steve Hines and Daniels Lee--states. "We recognize that some developers prefer using open Web technologies, while others prefer Flash. So we've created two separate versions of each template."

According to Google, one of the new templates "provides a full-featured video playback site for playing either HTML5 or Flash video content"; while the other "provides a single-page video playback site, again for either HTML5 or Flash video content." The company says that the templates are open sourced under the Apache 2 license, so that developers can modify and customize them in order to fit their brand and desired functionality. "One important optimization for browsing Web sites on TV is ensuring that D-pad navigation works well," Google's blog post continues. "The JavaScript-based templates utilizes a new library we've developed for this purpose-- the Google TV Web UI Library. This library has been open sourced as well."

Google previously published a guide for optimizing Web sites for TV. Detailed information on the new templates is available here; and more information on the new UI library can be found here.