Is datatable rerender of rows only possible?

[michael.j.morgan]

I am filtering and sorting my rich:datatable external to the built-in filter and sort because I require a new database query each time. I am trying to duplicate the look and feel by using the table header and column headers for these purposes. Is there a way to just rerender the body of the datatable (similar to the built-in filter) so that I don't have to worry about focus issues oncomplete. The focus attribute does not provide the desired functionality.

Here is a one column sample of what I am doing:

<rich:dataTable id="docListing" value="#{docDataModel}" var="cur" rows="10">
 <f:facet name="header">
 <rich:columnGroup>
 <rich:column styleClass="dataTableHeader">
 <a4j:commandLink value="Document Id " reRender="doc" actionListener="#{docDataModel.refreshRequired}">
 <a4j:actionparam value="id" assignTo="#{docDataModel.sortField}"/>
 <h:graphicImage value="#{docDataModel.sortCol['id']}.gif"/>
 </a4j:commandLink>
 </rich:column>
 </rich:columnGroup>
 </f:facet>
 <rich:column>
 <f:facet name="header">
 <h:inputText id="titleQ" value="#{docDataModel.example.title}">
 <a4j:support event="onchange" reRender="docListing" focus="nextColumn" actionListener="#{docDataModel.refreshRequired}"/>
 </h:inputText>
 </f:facet>
 <h:outputText value="#{cur.title}"/>
 </rich:column>
 <f:facet name="footer">
 <h:panelGrid columns="2" width="100%">
 <h:outputText value="Total Records: #{docDataModel.rowCount} (maximum #{docDataModel.maxAllowableRows} viewable)"/>
 <rich:datascroller for="docListing" maxPages="2" pageIndexVar="pageIndex" pagesVar="pages" fastControls="show" boundaryControls="show" stepControls="hide">
 <f:facet name="pages">
 <t:div style="text-align:center; white-space:nowrap;">
 <h:outputText value="Page #{pageIndex} / #{pages}"/>
 </t:div>
 </f:facet>
 </rich:datascroller>
 </h:panelGrid>
 </f:facet>
</rich:dataTable>

The only other way I can think to accomplish this is to move the column headers and table header information outside the rich:datatable, but then I have to worry about column width formating issues.

Any help is appreciated.