Hello all,

I am very pleased to release a beta of DataTables 1.6. It has been almost a year with DataTables 1.5 (which followed on very quickly from 1.4) and the community has been growing steadily. The number of visits to datatables.net continues to go up, as does the forum post count. Hopefully 1.6 will be as well received as the earlier versions.

So what are the major features you expect in 1.6? Nothing revolutionary, but certainly evolutionary:

- Support for multiple instances of sDom elements. What this means is that you can have two (or more!) filter boxes, pagination elements or any other table control! ( http://datatables.net/1.6-beta/examples/advanced_init/dom_multiple_elements.html )
- Stable sorting. Particularly important in Google Chrome, the table will retain it's original sorting order if items match value.
- A bit more speed :-)
- 1.6.beta examples - http://www.datatables.net/1.6-beta/examples

Note that there have been a few API changes so you will have to make changes to use DataTables 1.6 if you use:

- Server-side processing: iSortDir_{x} has been renamed to sSortDir_{x} to reflect that it's a string
- A custom pagination plug-in: The fnInit function now takes three arguments. Please see the release notes.

Also note that the current releases of TableTools and FixedHeader are not currently compatible with 1.6.beta. New versions will be available soon.

As always, feedback is most welcome - please post any bugs and comments in the forum. Also, please remember to make a donation if you are using and enjoying DataTables :-)

Regards,
Allan