@allan , @colin -- I'm very much enjoying DT 2.0 and especially like the new layout option.

I think a great addition to the API would be the ability to be able to select a specific portion of the layout and to show/hide that portion (and maybe some other operations).

    layout: {
        top1Start: {
                name: 'main-buttons',
                buttons: {
                        ... buttons code ...
                }
        },
        top1End: {
                name: 'more-buttons',
                buttons: {
                        ... buttons code ...
                }
        },
        topStart: 'info',
        bottom: 'paging',
        bottomStart: null,
        bottomEnd: null
    }

This could be done either through specifying the layout property, such as top1End, or using a name layout-selector:

table.layout('top1End').hide()
table.layout('more-buttons:name').show()

I know the buttons themselves can be shown or hidden, but controlling the layout itself would allow a more complicated layout to be shown or hidden in total.