1) Currently no. The overlay is hardcoded in the searchFilter plugin. The only way to do it now is to delete the associated overlay element from the code, but I add this in the todo list.
2) The search dialog is related to grid. Maybe you will try to change some thing in the css – the related things in the css have a ui-searchFilter class.
3) It is a simple just call $(“#mygrid”).jqGrid(“searchGrid”,{ options } );
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