customization of the apa-style with biblatex

Question

I'm trying to help a friend who needs to use the apa-style for his dissertation. Two things should be modified since he uses the \footcite command:

1 - the title (of the book) should appear in the footnote (which is not the case by default)

2 - the authors' first names should be printed in the full bibliography at the end of the document.

Does it make sense to modify the apa-style this way? If yes, how can it be achieved?

So far here is what I have (quite basic code):

\documentclass[fleqn,10pt]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[american]{babel} 
\usepackage{csquotes}          
\usepackage[style=apa,backend=biber]{biblatex}    
\bibliography{mem}          
\defbibheading{bibempty}{} 
\DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}
\begin{document}
\chapter{Chapter}
\section{Section}
some text \footcite{report}
\section{References}
\printbibliography[heading=bibempty]
\end{document}

plus whatever report reference in mem.bib. Should I have a look in the bbx files (or equivalent) to customize? Thanks

Answer 1

The APA style uses the author-year (or author-date) citation format, while you seem to want the author-title format. So: No, it probably doesn't make sense to try and bend biblatex-apa to your liking. Consider to use the authortitle style shipped with biblatex, and use \autocite as main citation command.