group-only ignoring custom columns?

["Haertig, David F \(Dave\)" <haertig (at) avaya.com>]

Hi -
 
New Hobbit user here.  Long-time Big Brother user however.
 
The following directive should display four columns, I would think:
 
group-only conn|custom1|custom2|info
 
But what I get is only the conn and info columns.  I have not sent in
any data for the custom1 and custom2 columns yet.  With Big Brother, I
used to be able to add these columns in bb-hosts and have them display
(as placeholders, basically) even without sending data.  It this
operation different under Hobbit?  If not, any ideas why my custom
columns are not displaying?
 
I am in the habit of starting out with a mock-up layout to determine the
look-and-feel of my display.  Just by creating a bb-hosts file and
populating it with columns that I will eventually write custom tests
for.  Then I come back and write the custom scripts to fill in those
placeholder columns after getting my layout finalized.
 
Thanks!