Newbie GNOME questions...

["T.L." <tony lyon sbcglobal net>]

GNOME Gurus,
I was wondering if you could shed some light on a small problem
that I am having... I am using GNOME to create a graphical
interface to a multi-mode data controller that is connected to a
ham radio transceiver. I have been able to understand the basics
of GNOME, but there are a few aspects that I have yet to find
the answer for....

Here are my questions:

#1) Is there a GNOME API that will allow me to display incoming
       text from a file stream (i.e. incoming data from a serial
port...)

#2) Same scenario, but in this case I would like to enter text and
       have the text sent out to a serial port?

#3) How would you create a window that would be divided in two
       halves such that the top half would be for data display (for #1
       above) and the bottom half would be for text entry?

I really would appreciate your guidance/hints/comments on this.
I have searched all over the place and also have 2 books on GNOME/GTK
programming, but I have been unable to find the answers to these
questions.....

Regards,
Tony L.

P.S. Please forgive my GNOME ignorance, but I like to learn by doing
         and that is what I am trying to do with this GNOME based
         software project....