General has a good point about the two statusbar plugins you are aiming at being closed source (or at least source-not-readily-available). I ran into this problem trying to use the alarm interface world clock uses (no-source-available). Fortunately, the functionality wasn't too complicate and I was able to duplicate it without access to the code. I'm not sure this will be the case with your endeavor, though.

Statusbar code is fairly simple, although the tutorial for Chinook leaves quite a bit to be desired. The Bora tutorial is excellent, but not everything is the same between Bora and Chinook. Take a look at statusbar clock's code, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions (I can guarantee I will be able to answer ) Also, Advanced Backlight Applet code is obviously an excellent place to start (my own starting place as well).

Good luck.