I am currently looking at implementing server-side searching and pagination and I understand that the DataTable does not support this out of the box, which is fine. I will use an external pagination control, as well as that I would be using a custom searching component (partial view) anyways for specific search criteria for the application. However I would like to make use of the DataTable's excellent sorting UI in the column headers but I can see there aren't any events that I might hook into to trigger a data refresh on a sorting change. Right now the headers would just affect the sorting of the current view the grid has, which will be a single page.

Expected Result: When I click on a header to sort the data table, I would like to have the option of capturing an event with an identifier what column was clicked and the sort direction selected. This way I can compose a new search call with the appropriate sorting and then update the data table with the appropriate page of information.

Actual Result: If I load a single page of data then click on a sorting header, it will just sort the values current page.

Justification: If I am on Page 1 of 10 pages of records and go to sort by name, I expect that the grid would refresh to show the first page of all records sorted by name, not just sort the current page items by name.