So, there are essentially 4 ways to write text on an image using php.
This is what image_overlay should look like. JS tabs. See attachments.
So, I now have the dialog for picking colors and the tabs working. But I want the image to be visible on the page, so I removed the absolute positioning, which means when the image moves (by changing the height of a tab, for instance), the shapes don't, anymore. The position:absolute is coded in the jQuery UI for Draggables, which is understandable, but ever so annoying. The only thing I can think of to do is go through each shape and change the position on a callback whenever the tabs change, but that could get to be a REAL drag on performance with a lot of shapes.
Ideas?
I now have the Farbtastic color picker integrated with Image Overlay. (Not updated on this site yet). Also, the color picker now launchs into a dialog to move around the sceen, and everything else is contained in tabs.
By tonight I will have fought with CVS and uploaded what I have to Drupal.org (I hope).
This is getting very old. Being sick means less work is done, which means less fun.
News:
On localhost, I have the tabbed interface working - mostly. Integrating with themes will be a real pain - I need to look into JQuery UI Tabs Module and see if I can steal some code from that. I'm also looking at the Farbtastic color picker, which is included with Drupal, and studying the Color module in core to figure out how to best utilize it. I'm also considering an option to leave my simple picker in instead, although I'll need to get it working with non Firefox browsers first.