Very interesting. In order to make icons "relative" independet in the grid - i.e to use other CSS one possible solution is to remove all code which have calss = "ui-icon ui-icon-something...." outside the grid in variables (by example in lang file) and put the variables in the code.

Also this will requiere other changes in the code and css. Not sure that this is a trivial task.

Instead I will add this in the todo list.

Best Regards

Tony

look at the demo from the answer. It shows how to use Font Awesome icons in some parts of jqGrid. I don't chaged icons in other places of jqGrid (editing dialogs, message forms, formatter actions etc). Font Awesome icons are vector icons, so one see very clear the difference to jQuery UI icons after using zoom. Font Awesome icons are provided on github.

What do you think to modify jqGrid code to make usage of Font Awesome icons more simple? It seems to me that the modication of the code is not so complex.

Best regards
Oleg