basically instead of having to do

"item": "minecraft:diamond_axe", "data": { "display": { "Name": "{\"text\":\"Battle Axe\"}" }, "Enchantments": [ { "id": "minecraft:sharpness", "lvl": 10 } ] } }
it could be reduced to "item: "minecraft:diamond_axe" "data": "{display:{Name:"{\"text\":\"battle axe\"}"},Enchantments:[{id:"minecraft:sharpness",lvl:5}]}"

it makes recipes for some datapack makers easier considering the NBT often needs to be very specific

Should be fixed.
If neither deny nor require is given the object should now e interpreted as raw data.

Ok lol, I completely misunderstood you.
Nbt as strings if that's what you're looking for was once a thing but it has been discontinued since it's really messy with all that string escaping that needs to be done.

I'm not sure whether I'll reintroduce this at some point.

i think json5 doesn't need string escaping

I guess I fixed that already a while ago 🤔
@Nathan22211 Json5 or Hjson would be nice but would be a lot of work and would break vanilla compatibility.

Sorry for the long pause in development :) I can't guarantee that it'll become better though. ^^