4 ms·

Show HN: XML Fiddler – tool for quick XML exploration

62 points by masa331 6y ago

masa331 6y ago
Hi everybody, author here this is simple tool i created to solve a couple of pain points i had when viewing XMLs. I often work with XMLs or XSDs from various sources and i need to quickly search through them or extract some sample data. This tool makes it a bit easier for me than viewing the documents directly through browser, which i used previously. It already helped me a lot in my day to day work so i thought it might also help someone else. Post similar tools if you know them. I always find those useful. Have a good one!
- haasted 6y ago
  Very minor request: Pressing "extract" provides no real UI feedback as to what happened. Until I "discovered" the correct tab, it felt a bit like the button was not wired up to anything. No UX expert, but would it be possible to do something that signals to the user that something did indeed happen?
  - masa331 6y ago
    Hi, thanks, that's a good point. I will look into it
ggoo 6y ago
Nice! simple and intuitive, I like it!
jarym 6y ago
Decent tool, simple and easy! Glad that XML is still getting attention these days. While JSON is excellent for almost everything, there are still areas where XML excels.
- masa331 6y ago
  In my industry(accounting in a small europe country) XML is the standard which is used for any data exchange. Then CSV. I don't think i'v ever got my hands on anything in JSON. Maybe once or twice. In APIs of course but these aren't much common here yet anyways.
  - toyg 6y ago
    XML got to be the standard for historical reasons, but it's resisting very well where its superior formality and exactness give it an edge over "hip" loose formats like JSON.
tandav 6y ago
I recently found this. Works like a charm: https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict
Minor49er 6y ago
"Extract" doesn't seem to work, but the rest of this is simple and intuitive. Very nicely done. I wish I had this tool a long time ago!
- masa331 6y ago
  Hi, thanks. When you press Extract the extracted data shows in the Extracts tab in menu. It doesn't do anything immediatelly. That's not good UX and i'm gonna adress it somehow as someone else already suggested. Or there were no data in Extracts after you tried to extract something? If you don't mind please open up an issue with sample data and xpath in https://github.com/Masa331/xml_fiddler/issues https://github.com/Masa331/xml_fiddler/issues and i will look into it
  - Minor49er 6y ago
    That makes sense to me now. Even though Extracts was right there, I didn't make the connection. I assumed that it would copy the same way that the XPath is copied when that button is clicked.
warpech 6y ago
Similar to XML Notepad, one of the nicest freeware mini apps ever published by Microsoft: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Notepad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Notepad
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  Fully open source (MIT license) too!
- masa331 6y ago
  Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I will look into it when working with bigger files edit: here is the repo link: https://github.com/microsoft/xmlnotepad https://github.com/microsoft/xmlnotepad
afandian 6y ago
As we're talking XML and XSD, does anyone have a good open tool for diagramming XML schemas into something browseable and graphical? Looking to automatically build docs from XSD in a CI task rather than having to do it manually. oXygen gives nice output, but it's not open and doesn't work well in a CI pipeline.
- austincheney 6y ago
  CSS. You can apply CSS directly to a schema instance in order to allow beautiful display in a browser. If you are feeling really wild you can add a tiny sprinkle of JavaScript at the tail end of the file for complete interaction via DOM walking. Here is an example of a schema instance with CSS. Keep in mind this is literally the XSD file: http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd
  - afandian 6y ago
    This is incredibly cool. Plenty of food for thought. I think people would miss seeing UML type diagrams, especially for a large intricate schema. This is what we've currently got: http://data.crossref.org/reports/help/schema_doc/4.3.7/4.3.7.html http://data.crossref.org/reports/help/schema_doc/4.3.7/4.3.7...

62 points by masa331 6y ago

Hi everybody, author here this is simple tool i created to solve a couple of pain points i had when viewing XMLs. I often work with XMLs or XSDs from various sources and i need to quickly search through them or extract some sample data. This tool makes it a bit easier for me than viewing the documents directly through browser, which i used previously. It already helped me a lot in my day to day work so i thought it might also help someone else. Post similar tools if you know them. I always find those useful. Have a good one!

haasted 6y ago
Very minor request: Pressing "extract" provides no real UI feedback as to what happened. Until I "discovered" the correct tab, it felt a bit like the button was not wired up to anything. No UX expert, but would it be possible to do something that signals to the user that something did indeed happen?
- masa331 6y ago
  Hi, thanks, that's a good point. I will look into it

ggoo 6y ago

Nice! simple and intuitive, I like it!

jarym 6y ago

Decent tool, simple and easy! Glad that XML is still getting attention these days. While JSON is excellent for almost everything, there are still areas where XML excels.

masa331 6y ago
In my industry(accounting in a small europe country) XML is the standard which is used for any data exchange. Then CSV. I don't think i'v ever got my hands on anything in JSON. Maybe once or twice. In APIs of course but these aren't much common here yet anyways.
- toyg 6y ago
  XML got to be the standard for historical reasons, but it's resisting very well where its superior formality and exactness give it an edge over "hip" loose formats like JSON.

tandav 6y ago

I recently found this. Works like a charm: https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict

Minor49er 6y ago

"Extract" doesn't seem to work, but the rest of this is simple and intuitive. Very nicely done. I wish I had this tool a long time ago!

masa331 6y ago
Hi, thanks. When you press Extract the extracted data shows in the Extracts tab in menu. It doesn't do anything immediatelly. That's not good UX and i'm gonna adress it somehow as someone else already suggested. Or there were no data in Extracts after you tried to extract something? If you don't mind please open up an issue with sample data and xpath in https://github.com/Masa331/xml_fiddler/issues https://github.com/Masa331/xml_fiddler/issues and i will look into it
- Minor49er 6y ago
  That makes sense to me now. Even though Extracts was right there, I didn't make the connection. I assumed that it would copy the same way that the XPath is copied when that button is clicked.

warpech 6y ago

Similar to XML Notepad, one of the nicest freeware mini apps ever published by Microsoft: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Notepad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Notepad

ComputerGuru 6y ago
Fully open source (MIT license) too!
masa331 6y ago
Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I will look into it when working with bigger files edit: here is the repo link: https://github.com/microsoft/xmlnotepad https://github.com/microsoft/xmlnotepad

afandian 6y ago

As we're talking XML and XSD, does anyone have a good open tool for diagramming XML schemas into something browseable and graphical? Looking to automatically build docs from XSD in a CI task rather than having to do it manually. oXygen gives nice output, but it's not open and doesn't work well in a CI pipeline.

austincheney 6y ago
CSS. You can apply CSS directly to a schema instance in order to allow beautiful display in a browser. If you are feeling really wild you can add a tiny sprinkle of JavaScript at the tail end of the file for complete interaction via DOM walking. Here is an example of a schema instance with CSS. Keep in mind this is literally the XSD file: http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd
- afandian 6y ago
  This is incredibly cool. Plenty of food for thought. I think people would miss seeing UML type diagrams, especially for a large intricate schema. This is what we've currently got: http://data.crossref.org/reports/help/schema_doc/4.3.7/4.3.7.html http://data.crossref.org/reports/help/schema_doc/4.3.7/4.3.7...