Are you willing to use a GUI toolkit like Gtk2 or Tk? If so, you can probably use one of the widgets, like the Text or Canvas to simulate what you want to do. You could put a text string in the system tray, or you could embed an xterm into a canvas, and make whatever headers and footers you desire above and below a xterm window. An example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Tk;

# Idea ripped from a script by Christophe Mertz of the
# Tk::Zinc module, to work with a plain canvas.
# The Zinc module has much more flexibility in how
# you can hide windows. I had to mask the xterm with a
# toplevel to hide it in the plain old canvas.
# 

my $mw = MainWindow->new();

my $canv = $mw->Canvas(-bg => 'lightsteelblue',
     -relief => 'sunken',
     -width => 550,
     -height => 350)->pack(-expand => 1, -fill => 'both');

my $xtermWidth = 400;
my $xtermHeight = 300;

## this Frame is needed for including the xterm in Tk::Canvas
my $xtermContainer = $canv->Frame(-container => 1);
my $xtid = $xtermContainer->id();
# converting the id from HEX to decimal as xterm requires a decimal Id
my ($xtId) = sprintf hex $xtid;

my $dcontitem = $canv->createWindow(275,175,
   -window => $xtermContainer,
   -width => $xtermWidth+100,
   -height => $xtermHeight,
   -state => 'normal');

my $label = $canv->createText( 275,10,
       -text => "Hide xterm",
       );

$canv->Tk::bind("<Button-1>", \&hideShow);

my $width = $xtermWidth;
my $height = $xtermHeight;

$mw->Button(-text => "Exit", -command => [sub{Tk::exit}] )->pack(  );

my $tl; #used to mask xterm
system("xterm -into $xtId &");

     
MainLoop();

sub hideShow {
    if ($canv->itemcget($label, -text) =~ /Hide/) {
             $canv->itemconfigure($label, 
                    -fill => 'white',
                    -text => "Show xterm");
             
         $tl = $mw->Toplevel(-use=>$xtId );
           } else {
             $canv->itemconfigure($label, 
                    -fill => 'black',
                    -text => "Hide xterm");
             $tl->withdraw;
        }
}
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