I hope I've posted enuff info!

I think you've posted too much info. :)

Since I've been doing a bit of Perl/Tk lately, your problem sounds like it might be interesting, but I'm not in the mood to deal with all that code. I think you'd be more likely to get some useful input if you trimmed your code down to a few small, concise examples and included detailed explanations of the behavior you want from your interface.