APEX: Retrieving Input Type Box Values

Hi.

New to APEX (been pulled from a J2EE project into it to assist a coworker in a time-critical situation).

We have an APEX form that contains a series checkboxes.  When a user clicks on one of these boxes, a dynamic input box is created beside it, and when/if the user unclicks, the box goes away (this was accomplished through the use of JQuery).  Now I'm stumped as to how to use APEX to loop through these boxes, determine if each contains a value, and if so, do some further processing.  In JQuery I can use a basic selector to retrieve all instances of populated input boxes.  Does APEX have anything that approaches JQuery selectors in any sense?

Or, is it possible to simply loop through the input box form elements and do some type of check to determine if a box contains a value, and if so, retrieve that value and do further processing?

Thanks very much.