As well as Darin's answer about using a form GET method, you can also call javascript functions that will then in turn call an action.
You can intercept the button click event when clicked and run your own code. That code can call an action asynchronously using Ajax or just simply navigate to an action method
Here's sample javascript that intercepts the button click event
$(document).ready(function () {
myButton.onclick = function (event) {
// in here you can call an ajax method or just navigate to an action
return false;
}
// or using jQuery
$('#myButton').click(function (e) {
// do whatever here
e.preventDefault;
});
});
Or you can intercept a button that has an href attribute
$(function () {
$("#myButton").click(function () {
var href = $(this).attr("href");
var route = href + "?paramName=" + $('#SomeValue').val();
$(this).attr("href", route);
});
});
This adds parameter information that you may have stored in another input on the page and appends it to the Url and then navigates to the action