Question

Can we use Jquery JQgrid with div element instead of table

Answer 1

No, you can’t replace <table> to <div>.

The problem is that the code of jqGrid really work with the content of the grid as with the table. The DOM representation of <tr> element has cells and rowIndex properties (see here for example), the <table> has rows property (see here) which supports namedItem method (see here) and so on. The usage of methods which are specific for <table> improves performance of jqGrid code.

In any way the code of jqGrid really uses that main element of jqGrid is <table> and not <div>. So the code of jqGrid contains the following lines (see the source code)

if(this.tagName.toUpperCase()!='TABLE') {
    alert("Element is not a table");
    return;
}

In other words if you would use come other element (like <div>) instead of <table> you would get error message with the text “Element is not a table” instead of displaying the grid.