Normalizing the element type
This is where we will write a method to normalize all the explicit strings. Here, link becomes //a, button becomes //button, and so on. Your framework can continue to expand with many other element types as needed. The following function, normalizeElementType(), will take a plain English description of the element and translate it into a common xPath equivalent. Note that field and input become the same class, while an empty class description becomes a locator for all elements:
function normalizeElementType(elementType: string)
{
// Pessimistic: return all matches if the type is unknown
let elementText = "//*"
switch (elementType)
{
case "link":
elementText = "//a";
break;
case "button":
elementText = "/...