We're aware of the problems with running other apps concurrently with the player: we are going to work something out on this front. It's unlikely they'll actually share the same screen space (though I admit having other apps being able to bring up dialogs, etc, would be great) but we'll have some way of hotkeying between running apps (much like alt-tab on windows).

Toby has done some bits on the visual API, yes. Toby's joining empeg next month, working on visuals and UI - so there will be more manpower in that department :)

Hugo