Activating webSlinger

webSlinger is a toggle. Click the webSlinger icon in your browser's toolbar to switch it on for the page you're viewing; click it again to switch it off. (If you don't see the icon, open the browser's extensions menu and pin webSlinger.) When it's on, the webSlinger control panel appears over the page with the Extract, Array, and API buttons.

On the free Scraper tier, webSlinger runs right in the tab you're on — it doesn't open any extra tabs. (Paid recording sessions open helper tabs to validate automations; scraping doesn't need them.)

The scraping workflow

1. Activate webSlinger on the page (see above) so the control panel appears.
2. Turn on an overlay: click Extract for the data-extraction overlay (individual fields), or Array for the array-extraction overlay (a repeating list or table).
3. Right-click inside a highlighted bounding box — or on an index label, when extracting an array — and tick the checkboxes for the data you want.
4. The scraped data appears in the validation log in the control panel and is copied to your clipboard automatically. You can also save it to a file — see below.
5. When you're finished, click the webSlinger icon again to deactivate, or simply close the tab.

Save to a file (CSV or JSON)

Every extraction is copied to your clipboard automatically — ready to paste straight into Excel or Google Sheets. When you'd rather have a file, each entry in the validation log can be saved directly:

1. Click the ⤓ download glyph on a validation-log entry, or right-click the entry, to open the Save As menu.
2. Choose JSON or CSV. The file downloads immediately.

The two formats suit different next steps:

• CSV — a table with a header row, one row per item. Opens directly in any spreadsheet. Multi-value cells (a sub-array, e.g. several tags on one item) are written in {a, b, c} form.
• JSON — an array of objects, one per item, each keyed by its field name, with nested arrays kept intact. This is the same shape an automation script produces, and it's ready to hand straight to code or an LLM — the columns are already labeled, so nothing needs explaining.

Extract vs. Array

Two overlays, two jobs:

• Extract — pulls individual fields. Use it for one-off values like a price, a title, or a description.
• Array — pulls a repeating structure. Use it for lists, tables, or search results where every row has the same fields. See Array Extraction for how to target the right one.

Reading the index labels

When you turn on the Array overlay, webSlinger marks every repeating instance — a card, a record, a row — with an index label. The same instance can belong to more than one array: a product card might be one item in the page's "search results" array while also containing its own "specifications" array. So a single box often shows several index labels at once.

Each array is told apart by three cues:

• A color — every instance of the same array shares one color.
• An array number in brackets, e.g. [1], [2] — which array the label belongs to.
• A sequence label like 1/10, 2/10 — this instance's position and the total instance count for that array.

To target the array you want, find the index tags that share the same color and array number.

A worked example

Each combo card carries two index labels, and the category heading carries a third:

• Green [22] on the Combos heading — the category-names array. “Combos” reads 3/11, so the menu has 11 categories.
• Blue [9] on each card — the items in this category. They run 1/14 through 4/14, so Combos has 14 items.
• Pink [25] on each card — every item on the menu. They run 1/68, 2/68…, so the full menu has 68 items.

Every card belongs to both the blue [9] Combos array and the pink [25] whole-menu array at once. Right-click the blue label to scrape just the Combos category; right-click the pink label to scrape the entire menu — the instance count (14 vs. 68) confirms which one you have.

Picking the right array

Best practice is to right-click directly on the index label rather than elsewhere in the box. When the context menu opens, check that the instance count matches what you expected — chasing the 14 Combos from the example above, the count should read 14, not 68. If it's off, you've likely landed on a different array nested in the same box; close the menu and choose the index label with the right color, number, and count.

Then tick the checkboxes for the fields you want — here, the title, numeric price, and description — and webSlinger captures them across every instance.

The captured data appears in the validation log and is copied to your clipboard — or save it as a CSV/JSON file (see Step by Step). Hover a validation-log entry to preview the full extracted array:

Grab data straight from the source

Some of the richest data on a page never appears as text — map pins, search results, prices, and listings are delivered as JSON by background API calls. API Discovery captures those calls and pulls the data straight from the feed, including data conventional extraction can't reach (map markers, chart points, anything with no selectable text). It's included free on the Scraper tier.

How to use it

1. Activate the extension on the page, then perform the action that loads the data you want — run the search, open the category, scroll the list, load the map. That triggers the API calls webSlinger captures.
2. Click the API button in the toolbar to open the captured-calls panel. It lists the JSON requests the page made, grouped by method and URL — use the filter box to narrow them down.
3. Click the call whose response holds your data (the panel hints: “Click a call to extract fields from its response.”).
4. In the Pick fields to extract view, tick the fields you want. webSlinger shows the response's structure so you can choose exactly what to capture.
5. Click Record. webSlinger replays the call to confirm it works, then drops the extracted rows into the validation log and your clipboard — the same place your Extract and Array results land.

Which parts apply to the Scraper tier

The Basic Tutorial walks through webSlinger end to end. On the Scraper tier, focus on these parts:

• Navigation — applies. Getting to the page and moving around it is the same.
• Extraction — applies. This is the Extract / Array workflow described here.
• Input — works, but isn't useful on the Scraper tier. Filling inputs is part of recording a session map, and saving session maps requires a paid plan.

Open the Basic Tutorial →