Thanks for the prompt reply, but I think I explained myself badly.   I don't want to use the search dialog, but want to drive all search parameters from the values in a select box.   I found in the end that I can set the 'search' grid parameter and add a value for the 'Status' field (see bold text below). By doing this I can get the grid to load only the data I want by default and then the user can use the dropdown list to refine what they see later.  Let me know if doing this is not supported or likely to break in future versions.

Thanks again,

Roman

 grid.jqGrid({
            colNames: ['Transaction Number', 'Status', 'Created By', 'Created On'],
            colModel: [{ name: 'TransactionNumber', index: 'TransactionNumber', width: 200 },
                       { name: 'Status', index: 'Status', width: 100 },
                       { name: 'CreatedBy', index: 'CreatedBy', width: 250 },
                       { name: 'CreatedOn', index: 'CreatedOn', width: 175 },
                      ],
            pager: pager,
            sortname: 'CreatedOn',
            rowNum: 10,
            rowList: [10, 20, 50],
            sortorder: "desc",
            url: "/Portal/Queue/Transactions",
            filterToolbar: true,
            ondblClickRow: ShowTransactionDetails,
            search: true,
            postData: { Status: 'CreatedOn > 5/1/2010 AND Status == InProgress' }
        }),
        grid.jqGrid('navGrid', '#pager', { edit: false,
                                           add: false,
                                           del: false,
                                           search: false,
                                           refreshstate: "current"
                                         }),
        search.jqGrid('filterGrid', "#grid", {
            gridModel: false,
            autosearch: true,
            filterModel: [{
                label: 'Order Status:',
                name: 'Status',
                stype: 'select',
                defval: 'InProgress',
                surl: '/Portal/Queue/SearchFilter'
            }]
          })
       }

Maybe it depends where you call the search dialog.

Also this should work:

$("#grid").jqGrid({

...

});

$("#grid").jqGrid('searchGrid');

If you call the last code somehere when the grid is not already constructed you can use setTimeout function

Regards

Tony

I'm using version 3.6.5 and the new API, and can't seem to figure out how to get the grid to apply the defval parameter when it first loads.  I am using an external select list and filtermodel (which work great), but can't figure out how to trigger a search on initial load.  If I set a breakpoint in Firebug, it all works well, but without the breakpoint, nothing happens.

I guess I'm looking for 2 things: 

Explanation of why it works with the breakpoint and not without

A workaround to trigger the search on initial load.

Roman