Submitting a page with a hiddenInput fieldwith javascript

[evan k. stone]

I have a page in which there are several hyperlinks (at this point they're just standard anchor tags), and when the user clicks on a link, I'd like it to populate a hidden input field, submit the form, then render the same page based on the selection that was made...

I found this post:

http://www.coderanch.com/t/211708/JSF/java/value-which-changed-javascript-pagecode

...which gets me about 75% of the way there, but it doesn't address two other issues:

1. What's the best/accepted practice for submitting the form?
2. How do I interact with the hidden input field on the server side after it's submitted?

Perhaps I'm looking at this incorrectly, and I'll certainly seriously consider any other suggestions that are offered...

Thanks!