Newbie at javascript here. Trying to access the internals of RichFaces components with examples I find on the web, without much luck.

RichFaces 3.3 and JSF 1.2, jboss server, Chrome, ant.

I've seen examples like

```
#{rich:component(formId)}
RichFaces.$(stHourId)

```

But neither is recognized when executed.
So how can I use these or access them otherwise ... 

* Are these not available in RichFaces 3.3 ? If not, is there a way to do the example below in 3.3?
* Do I need something special in my xhtml file to be able to use these, or in web.xml or faces-config.xml or ?

### HERE'S THE SPECIFIC EXAMPLE:

access the value list of a rich:comboBox in javascript - found an example on the web

```
var valueArray = #{rich:component(formId)}.comboList.itemsValue;

```

I get an error when the page loads : **Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token .**
When I look at the code in the developer tool console, the #{rich:component(formid)} is **completely missing** (which causes other problems)

```
var valueArray = .comboList.itemsValue;

```

If I remove that line but break in the code, and try to manually use #{rich:component...} in the console, 

```
#{rich:component('form:recurStartMincomboboxField')}

```

I get : **Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL**
or

```
RichFaces.$('form:recurStartMincomboboxField')

```

a different error: **Uncaught TypeError: RichFaces.$ is not a function**

I know the form Id is correct since the following works, but I can't seem to access the value list from this

```
document.getElementById('form:recurStartMincomboboxField')

```

and If you want to see it in context, relevant parts:

```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
      xmlns:a4j="http://richfaces.org/a4j"
      xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich"> 

<head>    
    <script>         
        function checkMinute(formId, defaultVal) {
            alert('validateMinute');

            var minuteStr = document.getElementById(formId).value;

            // get list of values allowed for the combobox
            var valueArray = #{rich:component(formId)}.comboList.itemsValue;      
        }
    </script>
</head>

<body> 
    <h:form id="form">

    ......

        <rich:comboBox id="recurStartMin" value="#{filterManagerBean.recurStartMin}" required="false" 
                       selectFirstOnUpdate="true" defaultLabel="" enableManualInput="true" width="50"
                       onchange="checkMinute('form:recurStartMincomboboxField', '00')"
                       > 
             <f:selectItems value="#{filterManagerBean.minuteOptions}" />
        </rich:comboBox>

    ......

    </h:form>
</body> 

</html>

```

Been trying various things and searches all day, pretty frustrated :(