I'm looking to utilize jQuery to handle a few very common requests we get for data tables of varying sizes: scrolling, sorting, and dynamic filtering.
- I've handled scrolling in the past by having two separate tables with fixed width columns, along with associated div containers for the "actual" scrolling. However, this method doesn't work with any of the jQuery-based sorting table extensions that I've come across (tablesorter being my favorite so far) as they want everything in a single table.
- For filtering, they're requesting something akin to how Excel and SharePoint lists do it (basically all column values are listed in a dropdown, allowing the user to select/deselect them). I haven't seen anything like that yet, although it sounds possible.
- One other related nice-to-have feature would be the ability to "freeze" a column for horizontal scrolling.
Ideally I'd like an existing extenstion, but if none are out there I'd also appreciate suggestions from any jQuery gurus on how to best implement it. My current thoughts are to dive into tablesorter and extend/update it as necessary.
To hopefully keep things focused, paging is not an option (along with anything server based, for that matter).
Update: I do appreciate the answers so far, but none of the options given so far touch on the filtering aspect at all (that said, I must admit that jqGrid looks very good for some future projects I have). In the meantime I'll work on a custom filtering solution; if it works out I'll update again.