Hi Sven,
Thanks for your input. I had tried getComponent("fieldname").getValue(), but I dont know for some reason it was just returning me null every time. I finally did it using client side javascript as below:
<xp:link escape="true" text="Search" id="lkSearch" title="Search" styleClass="but_search">
<xp:eventHandler event="onclick" submit="false">
<xp:this.script><![CDATA[
document.getElementById("MainFrame").src = "/database.nsf/xp_GlobalSearch.xsp?search=" + document.getElementById("#{id:searchInput}").value]]></xp:this.script>
</xp:eventHandler>
</xp:link>
Thanks for your help.
Regards,
Yusuf