Selector Z: The Revolutionary Chrome Extension for Easy Webpage Selector Identification
Finding selectors on webpages has always been a tedious task for developers and automation specialists. Whether you’re building web scrapers or creating browser automation scripts, identifying the right selectors can be time-consuming and frustrating. Enter Selector Z, a new Chrome extension designed to simplify the process dramatically.
Selector Z stands out from other selector-finding tools by recording your entire workflow and providing multiple selector options for each element you interact with. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need to manually search for selectors through developer tools or use multiple extensions.
How Selector Z Works
The functionality is beautifully simple:
- Click on the Selector Z icon in your browser
- Click “Start Recording”
- Perform the actions you want to automate (clicking buttons, filling forms, etc.)
- Click the Selector Z icon again to stop recording
Once you’ve completed these steps, Selector Z presents a detailed breakdown of each action you performed. For each step, you’ll see:
- The type of action (click, input change, etc.)
- Timestamp of when it occurred
- The URL where the action happened
- Any values entered (for input fields)
- Most importantly, a comprehensive list of possible selectors
The Power of Multiple Selectors
What makes Selector Z particularly valuable is its ability to generate various types of selectors for each element, including:
- Standard selectors (similar to right-click and copy path)
- CSS selectors without classes
- Structure-based CSS selectors (without relying on classes or IDs)
- Custom data attributes (like data-test-ID)
- Inner text snippets (helpful for buttons and links)
- Placeholder text selectors
- Tag name selectors
- XPath expressions
This variety is especially useful when dealing with websites like LinkedIn that assign unique IDs to elements that change on every page load. In such cases, structure-based selectors become essential for reliable automation.
Practical Applications
Once you have your selectors, you can:
- Copy them to ChatGPT and request a browser automation script
- Use them in any browser automation tool
- Integrate them with AI tools that leverage browser automation
- Develop more sophisticated web scraping solutions
The extension’s creator is actively developing Selector Z, with plans to implement features like:
- A feedback box
- Element count beside each selector
- Element highlighting for verification
- And more improvements in future versions
Selector Z represents a significant step forward in browser automation tooling, making the selector identification process more efficient and accessible, even for those new to web automation.