If it works in the advanced XML, then you might try using the latest Sideview Utils. Even though it's advanced XML, Sideview Utils makes things a lot simpler so it's not that much harder to read than the Simple XML quite frankly.
Here's an example using the Sideview Redirector module. As well as Search, Pager and Table modules.
And I went ahead and added the "popup" arg to the Redirector, so the drilldown launches in a new window.
<view autoCancelInterval="90" isVisible="true" onunloadCancelJobs="true" template="dashboard.html" isSticky="False">
<label>Simple table drilldown view</label>
<module name="AccountBar" layoutPanel="appHeader" />
<module name="AppBar" layoutPanel="appHeader" />
<module name="SideviewUtils" layoutPanel="appHeader" />
<module name="Message" layoutPanel="messaging">
<param name="filter">*</param>
<param name="maxSize">2</param>
<param name="clearOnJobDispatch">False</param>
</module>
<module name="HTML" layoutPanel="viewHeader">
<param name="html"><![CDATA[
<h1>Simple table drilldown view</h1>
]]></param>
</module>
<module name="Search">
<param name="search">sourcetype=mylog username="X" | table username</param>
<param name="earliest">-4h</param>
<module name="JobProgressIndicator"></module>
<module name="Pager">
<module name="Table">
<module name="Redirector">
<param name="url">newView</param>
<param name="arg.q">search username="$row.username$"</param>
<param name="popup">True</param>
</module>
</module>
</module>
</module>
</view>
Also, if you want to customize attributes of that popup window you can use the "windowFeatures" param, and if you want to send it to a window with a specific windowName, you can use the "target" param. However with just "popup" set to True, it will give you a pretty standard little popup window.
Make sure to get the latest Sideview Utils from the Sideview site at http://sideviewapps.com/apps/sideview-utils. If you only have the version of Sideview Utils from Splunkbase then this example wont work because that copy of the app is really old at this point. In particular you'll need a recent version for the windowFeatures and target param and also for the Table module - none of that is in the old Splunkbase version.
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