How would I go about changing the layout of a List View Web Part? Instead of listing items in a boring column format I would like to do something like this:
[Title]
by [Author] of [Publication] on [Date]
[Description]
As you can see it would string together columns of data and my own strings and use multiple lines.
Create a DataForm or a DataView(List View) Webpart using SharePoint Designer and modify the XSL as per the Custom Layout
You can come close to that by creating a new view with columns ordered Title, Author, Publication, Date, Description and use the view style Newsletter.
To get that exact desired affect, you'll need to create your own data view web part in SharePoint Designer.
Please closely follow the steps outlined in the mentioned link :-
formatting list views using sharepoint designer and XSLT
XSLT List View
You need to work your way through the XSLT Dataview capabilities using SharePoint Designer and it will be easier for you create the exact markup structure that you need to format your dataview xslt.
