Hi Michael,
You might want to have a look at XNest, or the following GIMP plug-in if you are working on Win32: http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=3892
I don't know if there is an equivalent for Mac OS X, though.
Thanks for the link. This is great, it's got a lot of what I was interested in. If the windows could be bound within the main window area that would be all the main things my friend and I were looking for atm.
Kind regards
JG