Preamble

DataTables inserts DOM elements around the table to control DataTables features, and you can make use of this mechanism as well to insert your own custom elements. In this example a DIV with a class of 'toolbar' is created using sDom, and then HTML is inserted into the created DIV once the table has been initialised. You could put whatever HTML you want into the toolbar and add event handlers etc.

For more complex DOM manipulation around the table, you might want to consider making use of DataTables feature plug-in API, which is used for TableTools and other DataTables plug-ins.

Live example

Initialisation code

$(document).ready(function() {
	$('#example').dataTable( {
		"sDom": '<"toolbar">frtip'
	} );
	$("div.toolbar").html('Custom tool bar! Text/images etc.');
} );

Other examples