Can Display Suite be used for "Show: Fields" as well as "Show: Content" to be able to rewrite field output?
The answer is: no. But there is an alternative solution.

No - (At the time of writing), Display Suite does not appear to have functionality  for laying out fields in a view result row for “Show: Fields” format.

For laying out views row results, using display suite is only available for Views outputting the full node (i.e. Show: Content) as a row. The layout is done in the manage display section of the content type, defining a view mode for use in outputting the node in the view.

The solution therefore for laying out fields ( “Show: Fields” format ) and so making available the standard view functionality to modify each field's output behaviour for the view row result would be:


use the views_fieldsets module to group fields in parent div containers as required
use css to layout these parent divs and their children as required. for example, see: How to place Text and an Image next to each other in HTML?
access each field's settings as usual in the Views Edit Display, to customise the field's output e.g. rewrite it.