Hi, I don't see many people using rich:columns component but I'm having a lot of trouble with it. I couldn't manage to get it working although I've read about using non-id'd components and embedding inside a dataTable -with their corresponding workarounds:
http://www.jboss.org/file-access/default/members/jbossrichfaces/freezone/docs/devguide/en/html/columns.html


Here is my code, which at the time is only showing #{soc.desc} (rich:column IS working, unlike rich:columns) and none of the contents of rich:columns is being rendered. In fact, there's no generated HTML for either the rich:columns tag or its nested components:

 <rich:dataTable value="#{sociedad.socList}" var="soc" index="fila" rowClasses="fila_impar, fila_par">
 <rich:column id="desc_filas">
 <h:outputText value="#{soc.desc}" />
 </rich:column>

 <c:forEach items="#{sociedad.listaSociedades}" var="soci">
 <rich:columns value="#{soci.listaFases}" var="fasei"
 index="ind" id="column#{ind}">
 <f:facet id="fct#{ind}" name="header">
 <h:outputText id="outp#{ind}" value="#{fasei.desc}"/>
 </f:facet>
 <h:outputText id="outpt#{ind}" value="#{fasei.numRegistros}" />


 </rich:columns>
 </c:forEach>
</rich:dataTable>

//class beanController
private List<Subproyecto> listaSociedades = new ArrayList<Subproyecto>();

...getters and setters for listaSociedades...

//class Subproyecto
...
String desc="";
...
List<Fase> listaFases = new ArrayList<<Fase>();
...
(Also Subproyecto has its corresponding getters and setters for each attribute)

//class Fase
...
String desc="";
int numRegistros=0;
...
(getters and setters and other stuff)