Displaying parameter view instead of results in a portlet

Question

I posted this first in the Portal Content Areas discussion and they asked me to repost it here. When displaying an Application-Report as a portlet, how do I get the parameter view to show by default instead of the results view? Sure, I can wait for the user to click on the "Customize" link in the corner of the portlet to get to the parameters screen, but I want them to see this in the portlet by default before they see the results of the Report query.

Answer 1

Take the following actions:
1) Create a report with some parameters
2) Create a content area folder
3) Add a PLSQL-item to this folder containing this code:
<package-owner>.<package-name>.show_parms(p_mode => portal30.wwv_utlglobl.run_with_param);
4) Display this item directly in the content area
5) Publish the folder to portal
6) Create a page
7) Create a portlet on the page referring to the folder you just created
You will see the parameterform of the report with a RUN REPORT button. Just fill in the params and press the button.
Note the following problems:
1) When you display the Customize screen (which is only possible when you create this item as an application component item), you don't get the RUN REPORT button due to a bug that will NOT be solved until version 3.1. So, the user needs the option to modify the item to ever see the report (and I do not think that you want all users capable of editing your report-item).
2) When you use this method you will get the header of the template in your portlet. You can only avoid this when your report doesn't need a header too (because, when you remove the header from your template, your report also doesn't get a header).
I hope this will help you. By the way, i'm using 3.0.9 and am not sure this will work in 3.0.8.