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Show HN: Instantly turn any API into a native app, with a single JSON markup

14 points by gliechtenstein ↗ HN
Hi guys, I've worked on several apps in the past couple of years, and found that it takes too much effort going from having an idea to building an app and having the world use it.

I wanted a way to have an idea, turn it into a fully functional native app, and share it with the world, all in the next 5 minutes, as quick and as easy as writing a blog post. That's why I built Jason.

Basically Jason lets you build a native interface to display and interact with any data format (csv, rss, html, json), any website, any API in any way you want, simply by writing a JSON markup and loading it. There's no need for compiling, building, deploying, or anything like that. It's like loading a website but instead it's your JSON that turns into a native app. Everything from defining elements to styling to executing actions is described in a single JSON markup.

I really hope Jason can be helpful for anyone who have great ideas or great content but never bothered to build an app because it's too tedious or haven't had resources to do so.

Anyway I hope you guys like it, please let me know what you think, or ask any questions. Thanks!

The url is www.jasonclient.org

3 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 18.0 ms ] thread
fiatjaf
This is very interesting.

How is it different from a web browser with strange markup syntax?

gliechtenstein
Sorry I just saw this because for some reason this post got dropped off from the listing, I heard that I get penalized for not directly linking on a show HN post. I'm thinking about reposting tomorrow since only few people seem to have seen this post because of that. (If you see it again please upvote haha)

Anyway, it IS a web browser with strange markup syntax, if you put it that way. But there are many things I can point out, I'll just post some I can think of from top of my head:

1. It's native. Doesn't matter how you package a website, it still uses an HTML/JS/CSS engine to let you interact with it. Jason lets you effectively build a native app without actually building an app. The JSON markup is just an instruction to remote control native elements and native functions directly.

2. it's JSON based, it's meant for interacting with APIs, not a website. Websites don't work well because html/js/css have evolved to become something of monstrosity--which is both good and bad.

3. It assumes session. It assumes that you will be the sole user of the app, which browsers can't do for many reasons. So it has authentication/key management system built in.

4. More coming soon: This is just a first version, I intentionally cut down on many features I could have implemented because I wanted to see what people think first. I have a couple of production apps from which I extracted Jason. For an example check out www.ethan.fm It's running on Jason.