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 would encourage you to try out the Flexigrid.
It has a lot of great features and I personally think it looks more professional than the jqGrid.
It doesn't have some of the features that you asking for, but I think it could be a good start. It would be great if you could work on adding some of those features to the code base.
If you are coding in c#, then I posted a blog entry about how to use LINQ to Reflection to bind JSON to the Flexigrid... if you are using another language there are other examples you can find on Flexigrid's Website & Google Group page.
I came across this question as I was searching for a sortable table plugin myself; I really wasn't impressed with any of the suggested widgets, but later I discovered DataTables, and I was quite impressed. I recommend checking it out.
As mentioned in my update, I ended up using a custom filtering extension (closed source, unfortunately). I've recently started using SlickGrid and it's now my go-to grid.
I'd like to add the Laravel flavored DataTables (GitHub, jquery DataTables API) - perfect if you already work with PHP/Laravel.
Extra, koalyptus/TableFilter another custom filter table (actually, my fav).
Maybe this excellent plug-in could do it:
Demo page
It's called jQGrid, here is the project page: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jqGrid
a simple jQuery Scrollable Table Plugin