DataTables has most features enabled by default, so all you need to do to use it with your own ables is to call the construction function: $().DataTable();.

When using tables to display data, you will often wish to display column information in groups. DataTables fully supports colspan and rowspan in the table's header, assigning the required order listeners to the th element suitable for that column.

When customizing DataTables for your own usage, you might find that the default position of the featured elements (filter input etc) are not quite of your liking. So to address this issue, DataTables takes inspiration from the CSS3 Advanced Layout Module and provides the DOM initialization parameter which can be set to indicate where you wish particular features to appear in the DOM. You can also specify div wrapping containers (with an id and / or class) to provide complete layout flexibility.

This example shows a vertically scrolling DataTable that makes use of vh in order to dynamically resize the viewport based on the browser window height. The vh is effectively a percentage of the browser window height. 50vh is used in this example, i.e. 50% of the window height. The viewport size will update dynamically as the window is resized.