lol I'm sure others on the forum know loads more than I do

The transitions.ini is just a settings file, read the comments in it (lines prefixed with a #) and change the numbers. IIRC, changing the snap/grid thingy would cause a boot loop, so don't touch those two.

Hildon Desktop otoh is programmed in C, transitions are handled by Hildon Desktop.
Sources for h-d are available here http://repository.maemo.org/pool/fre...ildon-desktop/
Use the one corresponding to your FW version (one of them is for 1.2, use dpkg -l hildon-desktop on your device to see which version you have).