Column filter with selectors at top of table?

jshireync

Thanks for this great software!

I am total noob, so forgive simple question. I have table column filter/search working - with the selectors in the footer. Works like a charm. (http://datatables.net/examples/api/multi_filter.html)

I've just downloaded the ColumnFilterWidgets, which provides the selector drop-downs at the top of the table. Very nice. But I would like to filter on columns that may have 100's of variants - placenames, that sort of thing. Not drop-down-friendly content, to say the least.

The question: is there a way to put a tfoot-like search/filter above the table, positioned like ColumnFilterWidgets, but with simple text input boxes, not the dropdowns?

I'll ask the really-noob question here. Given

$("tfoot input").each( function (i) {
asInitVals[i] = this.value;
} );

could I perhaps create a span or div for each column with a unique name (e.g., ts1, ts2, ...) and then create an equal number of these function sets, replacing each "tfoot input" with the appropriate container id? Or is the tfoot container tightly coupled as part of the table?

Or maybe ColumnFilterWidgets could have a new option: no dropdown, to allow free-text entry?

Thanks in advance.