How to use Firebug and Firepath?

Q: How to use Firebug and Firepath?

A:

Pre-requisite - Install Firebug and Firepath from the Firefox Add-ons. Check out this FAQ.

We can use Firepath to find out the XPath of any elements on the web page.

First you can navigate to any site say www.youtube.com in Firefox browser.

There are three methods that you could use to invoke Firebug and Firepath in Firefox.

Method 1. Click on the Firebug icon on the top right corner of the page.

Method 2. Press F12 from your keyboard when the Firefox browser is active.

Method 3. Click on the View icon on the top of the Firefox browser and select Firebug.

After you open Firebug, you can

1. Click on FirePath tab.

2. Click on Inspect button on Firebug toolbar.

3. Move mouse pointer(cursor) to any web element that you want to inspect on the page.

 A blue border will appear around the selected element.

4. Click on the web element.

And you will see the XPath of the selected web element, and FireBug and FirePath have found the detailed HTML code for the element on the page. You can directly copy the XPath of the web element and paste it in Octoparse to use it. (You can ignore the dot(.) while copying.)