Multi Column Grouping: jqGrid or SlickGrid or TableSorter

Question

for my new application I need a datagrid which can do multi column grouping. I noticed that TableSorter doesn't support multi column grouping. jqGrid and slick grid do support multi column grouping. I need to select one ffrom jqGrid and Slickgrid. Other features I am looking for grid are paging, row expander to view more details, selection change event, sorting, bind XML/JSON data and search within grid.

Could anyone please suggest me which one will be the best bet for me?

Thanks!

Answer 1

To answer some of your questions...

• Does SlickGrid support multi-column grouping? YES... see this example: Multi-column sorting.
• Does it support paging? Yes but it might not be what you imagine. There is a paging inside the grid at the footer if you include the /controls/slick.pager.js but as I said it might not be what you imagine since it does the paging properly BUT if you use SlickGrid with the DataView Object which is the most common to use since you can do Grouping, Sorting and so on. Though when using DataView Object, SlickGrid requires it to be fully loaded in order to work, which means that it's NOT a DB paging as you might want.
• Does it support XML/JSON? For XML I never tried, for JSON the answer is YES, I use $.getJSON() to populate all my grids, though you could do it in multiple ways.
• Sorting? YES and even better it supports multi-column sorting Using fixed header row for quick filters
• Searching? YES you can implement the header row which will search within the column you search
• events? YES there is an extreme list of events you can subscribe Wiki Grid Events ...
  
  Why do I use SlickGrid and not jqGrid? SlickGrid is SUPER FAST, no one can beat it and for all of what it supports:
  
  1. multi-column grouping (which I personally helped to implement it)
  2. super fast (example with 500 000 rows: Optimizing DataView for 500’000 rows
  3. cell formatter,
  4. inside grid editing,
  5. multi-column sorting,
  6. AJAX loading,
  7. sub-total aggregation,
  8. etc... the list is long but you should definitely look at the list of examples: SlickGrid Examples

EDIT
I do not believe SlickGrid supports built-in printing but you might be interested in the following 3rd party plugin Copy Paste from Excel to SlickGrid