无法在独立浏览器中找到元素

Question

I have tried many different formats and am unable to locate the link that I need to click using xpath. Please help me learn the magic of xpath...

IWebElement TCE = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[*/text()='Recently Visited']/child::a[@title='Time Clock Entry']"));
            TCE.Click();

The code in the webpage for the link is as follows...

<div id="RecentlyVisitedWidget" class="recentlyVisitedWidget">
   <h2 id="ctl00_12_12_RecentlyVisitedLabel">Recently Visited</h2>
      <ul class="recentlyVisitedLinks">
         <li>
            <span id="ctl00_12_12_Repeater1_ctl00_link">
               <a title="Time Clock Entry" onclick="recentlyVisitedSelect('pages/VIEW/UTMEntry.aspx?USParams=PK=ESS!MenuID=2147!PageRerId=2147!ParentRerId=72','72','2147','2147', false, false, 'Time Clock Entry', true)" href="#"> Time Clock Entry</a>
            </span>
         </li>
      </ul>
</div>

I am able to accomplish this using the following code within a webBrowser Control in a form.

HtmlElement link = (from HtmlElement elem in webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")
                                    where elem.InnerHtml == "Time Clock Entry"
                                    select elem).ElementAt(0);
                link.InvokeMember("Click");

I am unable to find this link when trying to do this in a stand alone browser such as IE or Firefox. I have tried searching by CssSelector, linkText, Partial linkText, link, XPath, and the Id all returning a message telling me that the element could not be found.

Any ideas on why I would be able to locate this element in a webBrowser Control but not in a browser?

Answer 1

Your XPath should be something like this

//div[@id='RecentlyVisitedWidget']//a[@title='Time Clock Entry']

or

//div[h2[text()='Recently Visited']]//a[@title='Time Clock Entry'] 

Answer 2

Does it have to be an XPath?

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("ul.recentlyVisitedLinks a[title='Time Clock Entry']")).click();

I would avoid XPaths, when possible, because they are more error prone and slower.