Tony I managed to accomplish this for my requirements:
the following is the code segment,
I also allowed some columns to have a search capability by applying a simple mask array to the table

for(i=0;i“);
th.appendChild(mythdiv);
}
trow.appendChild(th);
}

I also added a style to the css file

table.scroll th span a img{
border-style: none;
margin-top: 5px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
margin-left: 0px;
margin-right: 2px;
}

That seems to work well for me then in the jsp page added a function as follows to open the search div

function searchQP(which) {
var myobj = ‘#srchimg’ + which;
var left = $(myobj).offset().left – $(“#searchBox”).width() – 50;
var top= $(myobj).offset().top;
$(“#searchBox”).css(‘visibility’, ‘visible’);
$(“#searchBox”).css(‘left’, left);
$(“#searchBox”).css(‘top’, -150);
$(“#searchBox”).css(‘position’, ‘relative’);
$(“#srchCol”).val(which);
};

in this div I have controls to reload the grid etc.
I think thats everything.
Thanks
Rick