Oh, I was thinking about your issue....what happens if you test it out using <h:dataTable> instead of ice's implementation.  It could be that this is an ice implementation problem.

you can also try <rich:dataTable>.

what do you mean exactly by:

dynamically viewable and moveable columns in a dataTable?

are you asking about changing the physical order of the columns by dragging/releasing?

and hiding/showing columns via clicking, etc.?

It does work with rich:dataTable so you'll want to try with that, see the work I did @ http://wiki.jboss.org/auth/wiki/DynamicCrud  specifically:

<ui:composition  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
                 xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
                 xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
                 xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
                 xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib"
                 xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich"
                 xmlns:a="http://richfaces.org/a4j"
                 xmlns:e="http://org.el.func/SeamFunc"
                 xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core">
    
    <c:if test="${empty entityIdName}">
                <c:set var="entityIdName" value="#{controlKey}Id" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty entityQuery}">
                <c:set var="entityQuery" value="#{e:evalEl(e:concat(controlKey, 'List'))}" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty entityIdField}">
                <c:set var="entityIdField" value="id" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty entityView}">
                <c:set var="entityView" value="/#{controlKey}.xhtml" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty excludedFields}">
                <c:set var="excludedFields" value="version" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty tableId}">
                <c:set var="tableId" value="#{controlKey}Table" />
        </c:if>
        
        <c:if test="${empty linkedFields}">
                <c:set var="linkedFields" value="id" />
        </c:if>
        
    
    <rich:dataTable id="#{tableId}" 
                    var="entity"
                    value="#{entityQuery.resultList}" 
                    rendered="#{not empty entityQuery.resultList}"
                    onRowMouseOver="this.style.backgroundColor='#F1F1F1'"
                    onRowMouseOut="this.style.backgroundColor='#{a4jSkin.tableBackgroundColor}'">
        
                <c:forEach items="#{entityQuery[controlKey].getClass().getDeclaredFields()}" var="field">
                
                        <e:setPropertyBindings valueBinding="#{field.name}" endsWith="ListLabel"/>
                        <e:setPropertyBindings valueBinding="#{field.name}" endsWith="EnumLabel"/>
                        <e:setPropertyBindings valueBinding="#{field.name}" endsWith="DatePattern"/>
                
                    <rich:column rendered="#{!e:csvContains(excludedFields, field.name)}">
                        <f:facet name="header">#{e:capitalize(field.name)}</f:facet>
                        
                        <e:setValueBinding var="vb" valueBinding="#{entityQuery[controlKey][field.name]}"/>
                        
                        <e:isDate id="vb">
                                        <h:outputText value="#{entity[field.name]}">
                                                <s:convertDateTime pattern="#{e:evalEl(e:concat(field.name, 'DatePattern'))}"/>
                                    </h:outputText>
                                </e:isDate>
                                
                                <e:isText id="vb">
                                    <s:fragment rendered="#{e:csvContains(linkedFields, field.name)}">
                                            <s:link view="#{entityView}" value="#{entity[field.name]}">
                                                        <f:param name="#{entityIdName}" value="#{entity[entityIdField]}"/>
                                            </s:link>
                                        </s:fragment>
                                        <s:fragment rendered="#{!e:csvContains(linkedFields, field.name)}">
                                            #{entity[field.name]}
                                        </s:fragment>
                                </e:isText>
                                
                                <e:isList id="vb">
                                        #{entity[field.name]}
                                </e:isList>
                                
                                <e:isEnum id="vb">
                                    <e:setValueBinding var="enumLabel" valueBinding="#{e:evalEl(e:concat(field.name, 'EnumLabel'))}"/>
                                    #{enumLabel == '' ? entity[field.name] : entity[field.name][enumLabel]}
                                </e:isEnum>
                    
                                <e:isBoolean id="vb">
                                #{entity[field.name]}
                                </e:isBoolean>
                    </rich:column>
                </c:forEach>
                
    </rich:dataTable>
    
</ui:composition>

May we see the code where issueColumnIds is and how its affected?

This stuff is really tricky and does require quite a bit of trial and error, keep at it.  c:forEach should work, for a bit more on dynamic columns see: http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/DynamicColumns  which comes from the Richfaces perspective.

Best thing to do is copy code that works as your basis the modify it to suit your needs.

-Samuel

The data table only expects column elements as children.  The c:foreach is called before the components dump their values into the model and ui:repeat is called before the render response phase. 
To use the ice components effectively, you should be using the ice:column component to iterate over the list (another option would be to use an html table element and children in combination with two ui:repeats. 

Option 1:-

//Columns

<ice:dataTable id="issuesList" value="#issueNodes}" rows = "10" var="issueNode" border="1"
        cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" sortColumn="#{issuesSortColumnName}"
        sortAscending="#{issuesSortAscending}">
       <ice:columns value="#{issueColumnIds}" var="columndId">
          <f:facet name="header">
             <h:outputText value="#{issueAction.getHeader(columnId)}"/>
          </f:facet>
          <ice:outputText value="#{issueAction.getColumnValue(issueNode,columnId)}"/>
       </ice:columns>
 </ice:dataTable>


Option 2 Html Table:-
<table>
     <!-- header -->
     <ui:param value='#{issueNodes[0]}' name='issueNode' />
          <tr>
               <ui:repeat value="#{issueColumnIds}" var="columnId"
> >
                    <th><h:outputText
value="#{issueAction.getHeader(columnId)}"/></th>
            </ui:repeat>
           </tr>
  <!-- body -->
     <ui:repeat value='#{issueNodes}' var='issueNode'>
           <tr>
           <ui:repeat value="#{issueColumnIds}" var="columnId" >
                     <td>
                <ice:outputText
value="#{issueAction.getColumnValue(issueNode,columnId)}"/>
           <td>
           </ui:repeat>
           </tr>
     </ui:repeat>
</table>

For more timely help with ICEfaces, you may want to post to the ICEfaces forum.  Also, sometimes when I search this forum for ICEfaces issues, I don't always see them all and users don't always tag them properly.

Anyone know how to get the sortBy to work with using the forEach?  I have a pageable rich:dataTable (ie. using ExtendedDataModel so it does not load too many records in memory).  It all works except for the sortBy which seems to only want to sort by things on the entity returned :(.

          <rich:dataTable width="600" id="listTable" rows="#{queryManager.resultsPerPage}"
               reRender="datascroller"
               value="#{queryManager.dataModel}"
               rendered="#{queryManager.dataModel ne null}"
               var="tpvTrans">
               <f:facet name="header">
                    <h:outputText value="Call Records" />
               </f:facet>
               
               <c:forEach var="col" items="#{queryManager.columns}">
                    <rich:column sortBy="#{tpvTrans.getValue(col)}">
                         <f:facet name="header"> 
                              <s:div>
                              #{col.label}
                              </s:div>                                        
                         </f:facet>
                            #{tpvTrans.getValue(col)}
                    </rich:column>     
               </c:forEach>
               
               <f:facet name="footer">
                    <rich:datascroller id="datascroller" />
               </f:facet>
          </rich:dataTable>          

ah, never mind, I think I have this now with EL in the java code...

ValueExpression valueExpression = (ValueExpression) expression;
ELContext elContext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getELContext();
Object value = valueExpression.getValue(elContext);

and then the value is the string and I can manipulate that in themodel to add to the Hibernate Criteria object.