I do not think that this is a bug, as described in the title of the topic, but rather this is a expected behaviour.

Which search module is used - toolbar search or dialog search.

If you use toolbar search you can disable searchonEnter and do the desired behaviour.

For form search this instead is not available.

 

Please look at the options in toolbar searching in the docs here.

 

Regards

However, the user then deletes the word "Andy" so that the input is blank but does not press enter.

There are a few ways of showing this:

• For the webpage we have, we have categories that apply extra filtering, when one of these filters is clicked, the grid calls the PHP routine with the filter and still passes the filter word "Andy", even though the search input is blank.
• If the grid is refreshed using $('#grid').trigger('reloadGrid'), even though the search input is blank, it still applies the previous "Andy" filter.
• If the user trims the search from "Andy" to "And", again does not press [ENTER], instead he refreshes the grid or in our case selects a category filter, JQGrid still passes the search as "Andy" and not "And" which is what is in the search input.

I know that to apply or clear a filter you must press [ENTER] and once the user deleted all of the characters in the search input, he should press [ENTER], but we are talking users and their sometimes inability to follow instructions.

I have found with programming and userbility the best thing to do is always account for user stupidity as a scenario like this they would class as a bug and throw it back in our faces.