Card-style top-to-bottom grouping for Table views

When I group cards along the left, it’s not really along the left at all: I get a convenient little collapsible box with the group label above the cards, and subsequent groups are shown in a vertical list. This is great!

When I group on a table view, I can group either along the left or along the top.

  • If I group along the left, I get the desired vertical result, but so much wasted screen real estate because the grouped column still occupies a whole column of width (even though it’s visually empty for most rows).
  • If I group along the top, I get what I’m looking for in terms of how the group is displayed—but the groups then render as a horizontal list instead of a vertical.

I’m hoping I can ask for the best of both worlds:

  • Groups appear in a vertical list
  • No wasted column space.

To better explain what I mean, please see this image showing all the wasted space when grouping on the left:

But grouping on the top means I can only see 1.5 of the 4 different groups:

In the above picture, my ideal setup would be for the “South South South South” header to appear underneath the “Reservoir” entry.