XPages tip: Using jQuery class selectors with hidden inputs

If you cut your XPages teeth by using the out-of-the-box-included dojo libraries, then you are probably intimately familiar with dojo.byId(“#{id:myElementID}”) to locate elements on your XPage based on the id attribute.

After starting to weave jQuery into your projects, you probably realized pretty quickly that the jQuery id selector syntax of $(“#myElementID”) does not work well with XPage component ids. But of course there is a solution for that – Marky Roden’s XSnippet which wraps the jQuery ID selector function in a XPage version.

Due to the above issues with getting elements by ID in jQuery, you probably started using class selectors such as $(“.myClassName”). This is all fine and good – until you go to add a class to the properties panel of a hidden input control:

As you can see from the screenshot above, there is no place to enter a class name in the properties for a hidden input control. Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? It’s a field. Fields have classes. I should be able to add a class to a hidden field. Apparently not.

Luckily, there is an incredibly simple way to do this using the attrs properties in the basics section of the properties panel:

• Add a new attribute by clicking the plus sign
• In the name field, enter “class” (do not add the quotes)
• In the value field, enter the name of your class, for example, “myClassName” (again, no quotes)

Now, you should be able to access your hidden input using a jQuery selector.