Adding a message box to my river

  I mocked up where I want to go next with the beautiful river stuff.
  http://scripting.com/images/2011/02/10/nextStepInRivers.gif
  All I did was split the page horizontally and add a box where I can add a message to my output stream. I already have the back-end for this completed and debugged. I have a UI, but it's a pretty ugly HTML form. The goal is to integrate the two.
  Here's a screen shot of the form I'm actually using, that's functional.
  http://scripting.com/images/2011/02/10/messageEditor.gif
  Notes about the editor.
  1. The pop-up menu says which feed the item goes to. I can manage more than one.
  2. The full link is entered in its own box
  3. There's a link to the feed (the white-on-orange XML icon).
  4. There's a link that pings TwitterFeed saying the feed has updated.
  5. The number is a count of the characters in the box. I'm going to allow you to set a limit and it will turn red whne you go over the limit. (Not implemented yet.)
  There's also a message area, to the right of the popup-menu, but since there is no message being displayed you can't see it. This is for confirmation messages like "Updated feed" or "Successfully pinged TwitterFeed."
  I see this evolving quite a bit, but this is the core functionality. With these two pieces integrated, there will be the equivalent of a Twitter client that only uses RSS to communicate.
  Cross-posted on the River of News list.