Bean in Javascript

A quickie. Is it possible to set a bean value in JavaScript. Cause I sure am trying to but no luck. Basically what i am trying to do is that when the user clicks a button on the jsp iview a popup appears. Now since there is more than one button in the jsp view i wish to set a state in the bean depending on which button was clicked and trap that in the doprocessbeforeoutput in the .java file. Thanks.