Is there such thing as a JSON editor for non-technical people

June 30, 2021 8:39 AM

I would like to make it easier for clients to change text in a JSON file. They are not programmers. Is there an online tool that lets someone edit and share JSON without having to know it (or how not to break it)?

In the past I have handled this by building a Wordpress dashboard that outputs JSON to a URL. This works fine but takes a while to set up.

So I wonder if there's an easier tool where a non-coder could work directly with a JSON file while the actual JSON-ness is being hidden from them. For example, they might be able to hit + to add a list of items, but would never be exposed to a single bracket or curly brace. Then, maybe, it would end up as a URL you could share, like Gist, etc.

I have seen headlines about the "no code revolution" but don't know too much about it and am not sure if this would fall under that category.

posted by johngoren to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Haven't used it personally, but jsonforms.io might fit the bill. Overall, the hard part of this is the UI. Any easy-to-use forms service will generate some kind of machine-readable output, and that ought to be easy to transform into json. So I'd look for the most suitable forms interface.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:10 AM on June 30, 2021

Not exactly what you asked and it’s pretty hacky, but Google Sheets has an API to retrieve a spreadsheet’s contents as JSON. In the past I’ve used it as a quick-and-dirty CMS; non-technical people can just add a row to the spreadsheet and then it shows up in the JSON.
posted by ripley_ at 10:10 AM on June 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

Netlify CMS has a good interface for this kind of thing, but it takes a while to set up.
posted by Phssthpok at 10:38 AM on June 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'll assume you're using OS X. I use the predecessor of Smart JSON Editor to quickly browse and edit more complex JSON objects, at times when a graphical interface can be useful for that job.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:21 PM on June 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Google's Firebase is super-user friendly.
posted by frecklefaerie at 7:54 AM on July 1, 2021