I work with JSON data A LOT when working with REST services. Usually when hitting these API endpoints the data is downloaded and opened up by my default text editor, TextMate. When I open this up, the data looks like this …

Data from www.tekpub.com/api/productions

UGLY.

Until a colleague of mine introduced me to a new good friend, JSONView, a plugin for FIreFox. Now, when I hit that same API, the data looks like this IN THE BROWSER:

Data from search.twitter.com/search.json?q=ruby

Sweet.Perfect for debugging and looking at the data formatted. Nice productivity boost.

Caveats

The content type must be application/json. Notice the first screen shot shows text from TekPub’s api. This is why we can also see this data in a browser. Normally if a file has the content type of application/json the browser will ask you to save the file.   Twitters api does return a application/json content type which is why JSONView works in this scenario.