Newbie question - workspaces

[Dave Lawrence <dgl integrinautics com>]

I apologize in advance if I picked the wrong mailing list
for this questions.

I'm running redhat8.0 with the gnome desktop.  I'd like
to write an application that keeps track of the time I
spend on different projects at work by assigning a
project to each workspace and logging the amount of
time I spend in each workspace when the screen saver
isn't on.  Is it practical to write such an application
for gnome?  If so, how big a project is it?
Conceptually, all I need to do is subscribe to
screensaver-on, screensaver-off, workspace-change
and workspace-rename events and I'd have all of the
information I would need.  Even if it's this simple,
I'd need somebody to point me to some example code
that does something similar.

Also, is there a way to make windows extend across
workspaces?  I know in the past with fvwm2 and sawfish,
I've been able to have a window half in one workspace
and half in another, but with whatever window manager
redhat8 defaults to, it seems like windows can only
be in one workspace.

Thanks...

                    Dave