I'm relatively new to jqGrid, so bear with me if this isn't the right way…
I'm firing a line of code on document ready to trigger my loading indicator div's visibility. My element #loadingindicator is a div that has a gif and some text to provide the user with feedback. This is really great because it triggers every time I run an Ajax call, letting the user know to be patient.
Hope it helps. Code below.
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#loadingindicator').ajaxStart(function(){$(this).show();}).ajaxStop(function(){$(this).hide();});
…other code…
}