Recording selectors

Sometimes you need one selector, not a whole keyword. Record Selector stops the test, lets you point at the element in the browser and returns a selector for it:

*** Test Cases ***Find The Login Button    ${selector} =    Record Selector    Login button    Click    ${selector}

Picking

Move the pointer over the page: Playwright highlights the element under it and names it in a tooltip. A click picks it — the click does not reach the page, so nothing is submitted or opened. Elements in frames and in open shadow roots can be picked too.

The toolbar is the one Record Keyword uses, with its header showing the label you passed — Login button above — so you know what to pick.

The selector

After the pick the toolbar shows the selector and counts the elements it finds:

• Playwright writes Playwright's own selector, the one Record Keyword uses: role, text, label, placeholder or test id where they identify the element, in Browser syntax — role=button[name*="login"i]. This is the default.
• CSS writes a CSS selector from ids, classes, attributes and the element's position — .loginButtonStyle. Frames are joined with >>>, open shadow roots with >>.

Switching between them keeps the picked element; start with the other one using generator=css. The selector is editable: shorten it, or drop a part that will change, and the count below follows as you type — one match is what most keywords need, several are shown as a warning, none as an error. Playwright highlights the matches on the page, and follows an edit once you pause typing; the dashed square before Reselect switches that highlight off and on. Reselect picks another element, and Use returns what is in the field, whatever it matches. Minimized, the header offers Reselect and Use too.

The same panel picks a selector in the middle of a recording: Pick in the toolbar of Record Keyword adds it to the keyword as a comment — see Picking a selector.

Ending

Use returns the selector, and it is written to the console and the log as well. ✕ in the header, or Escape, cancels: then the keyword fails, as it does when the page is closed or after five minutes without a pick or a click in the toolbar — change that with idle_timeout, or wait without limit with idle_timeout=${None}.

${heading} =    Record Selector    Page heading    generator=css    idle_timeout=1 minute

Like Record Keyword, Record Selector needs a visible browser, and it does not run while a recording session is open in the same browser context.