Webmaster Forum / ColdFusion / Advanced Techniques / March 2007

It sounds like you are confusing client-side technology and server-side
technology.

Coldfusion only deals with client-side technology - mainly information that
has been submitted via a form or url request to the server.  CF generates a
page and then presents it to the browser.  CF doesn't really have that much
interaction with the data on the page until another request comes in (i.e.
after form submission, a link is clicked, etc)

Client side technology such as JavaScript allows you to interact with the
contents of your page before the information has been sent to the server.  Your
DOM example is obviously a JavaScript address for a field on your form.  Once
you submit the form, CF will have access to it in the FORM scope structure.  
Until then, however, the only technology that can read/write to that DOM
element is client-side technologies such as JavaScript.

If you can explain a little more about what you are trying to do, we can
probably start you down the right path to figuring out what you need to do.