Yes, you saw it right.

As per the current WebDriver - W3C Candidate Recommendation the Locator Strategies enlisted are as follows:

• "css selector": CSS selector


• "link text": Link text selector


• "partial link text": Partial link text selector


• "tag name": Tag name


• "xpath": XPath selector

Snapshot:

However, the JsonWireProtocol was once used to support the Locator Strategies enlisted below, but currently the documentation clearly states its Status as obsolete:

• class name: Returns an element whose class name contains the search value; compound class names are not permitted.


• css selector: Returns an element matching a CSS selector.


• id: Returns an element whose ID attribute matches the search value.


• name: Returns an element whose NAME attribute matches the search value.


• link text: Returns an anchor element whose visible text matches the search value.


• partial link text: Returns an anchor element whose visible text partially matches the search value.


• tag name: Returns an element whose tag name matches the search value.


• xpath: Returns an element matching an XPath expression. The provided XPath expression must be applied to the server "as is"; if the expression is not relative to the element root, the server should not modify it. Consequently, an XPath query may return elements not contained in the root element's subtree.

Snapshot:

The change was propagated through the respective client-specific bindings. For the Selenium-Java clients here is the client code where we have the switch case working for the users:

        switch (using) {

          case class name:

            toReturn.put(using, css selector);

            toReturn.put(value, . + cssEscape(value));

            break;



          case id:

            toReturn.put(using, css selector);

            toReturn.put(value, # + cssEscape(value));

            break;



          case link text:

            // Do nothing

            break;



          case name:

            toReturn.put(using, css selector);

            toReturn.put(value, *[name=' + value + ']);

            break;



          case partial link text:

            // Do nothing

            break;



          case tag name:

            toReturn.put(using, css selector);

            toReturn.put(value, cssEscape(value));

            break;



          case xpath:

            // Do nothing

            break;

        }

        return toReturn;

Snapshot:

Now, your question must be why this change in the W3C specification and in the clients. As per #1042 the answer from the WebDriver Contributors was pretty straight as:

This keeps the specification simple as these can be implemented using the CSS selector, which maps down to querySelector/querySelectorAll.