Transom

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Next-generation web browser for building 100% native apps.

Transom was a native application development engine and embeddable SDK for the iOS platform. Essentially, a next generation web browser for building 100% native apps.

It implemented TRML (TRansom Markup Language), an extensible XML-based markup language that allowed you to develop 100% native mobile apps using markup. TRML was a fully extensible grammar with a ‘meta-description’ language that allowed the engine to be dynamically expanded.

For scripting, it included a full native embedded Python 3.x engine. Python code could be intermingled with markup to create fully functional native applications.

TRML supported ‘PubSub’ style event distribution to allow user interactions to be wired to screen widgets with little to no coding. It also supported ‘live coding’ and an embedded app-store for shipping for-pay components and applications.

The browser was used to develop XWeather, a commercial application to visualize extreme weather data and shipped on the iOS App Store. The entire application, including multiple tabs, an interactive 3D globe with live NOAA weather data and animated icons, embedded web-views, video playback, and native tableviews was written in approximately 500 lines of TRML (with no scripting).

The system was demoed to Guido van Rossum (Python creator) at PyCon Santa Clara in 2013.