1. A method including executing instructions recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable storage media using at least one processor, the method comprising: receiving a notification of a selection of an user interface (UI) element within a UI of a target application; generating a request for an element listener instance; notifying multiple test recorder hooks of the request for the element listener instance, wherein each of the test recorder hooks is associated with a specific UI format having multiple different element listeners depending on a type of selected UI element; creating the element listener instance by one of the test recorder hooks based on the UI format and the selected UI element; registering, by the element listener instance, for events associated with the UI element; and recording the events.