JSON in your Web Browser

Web browsers don’t tend to display JSON very nicely. See how yours does with this example. Some handy plugins that help with this. While they currently only allow viewing, how long before we se some PUT/POST action?

JSONView for Firefox

Normally when encountering a JSON document (content type “application/json”), Firefox simply prompts you to download the file. With the JSONView extension, JSON documents are shown in the browser similar to how XML documents are shown. The document is formatted, highlighted, and arrays and objects can be collapsed. Even if the JSON document contains errors, JSONView will still show the raw text.

There is also an Unofficial JSONView port for Chrome and the Unfortunately Named “XML View” for Safari

When installed, your JSON will look more like this:

JSONView browser plugins prettify

Posts in this series:

• JSON from the Command Line
• JSON from Javascript
• JSON with Ruby and Rails
• JSON in your Web Browser