Helen,
The easiest way to do #1 is open the List.js file and find this line and comment it out:
this.emit('click', this.selectedIndex, item);
Is there a way for me to trigger the spatial search on page load? you can have that tab as the active tab by using the widgets settings dialog and changing the "Initial View". But no there is not a current method for doing a graphical search based on a url parameter. You can search based on a value but not a graphic from the url.