"YTFE", most likely standing for "YouTube Frontend", was the primary YouTube frontend up until August of 2017, when its place was replaced by WebFE, which hosts Kevlar, known to many as Polymer, or the "new YouTube layout". As of June 2022, a version of YTFE (most likely a tiny fork) is used to render the embed and subscribe_embed pages, as can be seen by the body classes (date-YYYYMMDD en_US ltr site-center-aligned site-as-giant-card).

This project aims to recreate YTFE in its whole, as accurately as possible, using the open-source tools that YouTube used (SPFJS, Spitfire, VFL, etc.).

This repository includes 4 layouts. Below is a list of them, and their descriptions

• Refresh: Also known as "Cosmic Panda", the main layout from 2011-2012. Heavy on gradients and texture and has channel backgrounds.
• Hitchhiker: Coming after Refresh, the main layout from 2012-2014. Left aligned and mostly fixed size, less heavy on gradients and more flat.
• Nirvana: An update to Hitchhiker, that centers the page content and implements a new "card" style. The reason for this being seperate from Hitchhiker is because of how drastically different the HTML is.
• Epic Panda: An unused layout in between Refresh and Hitchhiker, similar to Refresh with some elements of Hitchhiker. Very few archives of this have been found!

• The Rehike community for the studies of InnerTube and the YouTube site.
• Alex Nicksay and Google for the YouTube site itself (duh).