title: jquery datatables fnfilter + script performace
body: <p>I am away from my development workstation so I thought I'd ask this in hopes of getting an answer when I try it tomorrow. I have a two part question relating to a web application i built using c# jquery and jquery datatables:</p>
  
  <p>1) I know that we can set the value of fnfilter as metioned on their page using something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var oTable;
  $(document).ready(function() {
  oTable = $('#example').dataTable();
  
  /* Filter immediately */
  oTable.fnFilter( 'test string' );
  } );
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>however is there a way to retrieve the value entered by the use in the search bar? I was thinking along the lines of
      var aContainer= oTable.fnFilter() 
  or
      var aContainer= oTable.fnFilter($(this).html())</p>
  
  <p>2) My application has to retrieve values from another source on the web. These are the value displayed in the datatable. Most of my processing(counting, etc..) is done client side and has drastically slowed down generating the web app. Does anyone know of any suggestions to increase performance of client side scripts specifically datatables?</p>