Fast Javascript Table sorter?

Question

I have a table with about 250 rows (may double within 6 months), and 50 columns on this page (warning: slow with IE). I'm using the JQuery Table sorter. But it is too slow with IE 7: it gives a warning about a slow javascript, and ask if I want to stop it. I've spent a lot of time to improve performances, so it works fine for all other browsers:

• sort text and digit only
• removed all but 2 parsers
• created an extra table that contains all the values, much faster than doing node.textContent() for each cell
• removed lowercase, trim, etc.

My version of the javascript is here. I think I cannot optimize it much more. I am looking for another fast implementation of a table sorter, or any good optimization I may have forgot, so that IE 7 won't complain about the execution time.

Edit: I've disabled sorting on 35 columns, it is still too long for IE

Answer 1

I use sorttable an extremely fast table sort javascript library. (not JQuery)

Answer 2

I'm a big fan of Christian Bach's jQuery table sorter ... http://tablesorter.com/docs/

• Compact and fast
• Sort on multiple columns
• Dynamic zebra stripe
• Optional metadata extension makes things even easier
• Parsers for sorting text, html, numbers, whatever (easy to customize)
• CSS styleable headers (of course)
• Cross-browser: IE 6.0+, FF 2+, Safari 2.0+, Opera 9.0+

EDIT: Anyone interested in tablesorter should see what Mottie has done with it: https://github.com/Mottie/tablesorter