SharePoint Content Query Web Part Group By, expand/contract

Question

On my SharePoint 2007 site, I have a custom list. This list has a column "status" (with values "open" and "closed"). I can create a view on the list that groups by "status", and the view creates nice plus/minus signs to easily expand/contract the grouped view. However, if I use a content query web part (CQWP) to query this list, and group by status, the grouping does not create the plus and minus signs to expand and contract the grouped column (instead, all items are displayed under the grouped headings).

For example, suppose there are 5 items in the list, 2 are open, and 3 are closed. If I setup a CQWP to query the list and group by "status", the following happens:

Actual result:

CQWP Box Boundary

closed

item 1
item 2
item 3

open

item 4
item 5
/CQWP Box Boundary

Desired result:

CQWP Box Boundary

[+] status: closed (3)

[+] status: open (2)

/CQWP Box Boundary

In the 'desired result', clicking on the [+] button should expand one of the groups. I'm pretty sure I must use a CQWP, because the custom list exists in a root site, and the CQWPs will be on many different sub-sites, querying the custom list (with some filters per subsite).

Answer 1

This type of grouping is not possible out of the box with CQWP. You can acheive similar functions probably with jQuery or some other custom solution, but you might be better off looking at creating a data view web part (DVWP) using SharePoint Designer or using a third party tool.