Hi,
i have switch in prodution with jqgrid, and i have the similar request from my users for the multisearch.
Before jqgrid, i had an image, on each header of the column, like for sorting, to add a filter. When we click on this icon, we arrive directly in the search windows. If a filter exist for this column, we arrive directly on the first filter for this column, therefor, we create one. Focus is made on the value for both.
For each column, i had to indicate if we can make a filter on it and which is the default operator. Like this, in most of the case, it avoids 2 clicks.
thanks
fred