Thanks for the help fellas, but I skinned this cat a little differently.
I set the visualisation to come on automatically after 2 seconds
in vis skin I put : IDL,002
in Exectbl.ini I put : "IDLE","VISU"
and on all the buttons that exit from this vis skin, I added this VISU||EXIT|| ie
B,2,-1,60,163,"VISU||EXIT||GPS","GPS"
It works almost exactly how I want it. The only problem is that if I move the mouse at all the timer kicks in and will turn the vis on/off. It should be fine for the touch screen as it will be one touch to open the vis skin and start the vis and then one touch to close the vis and navigate away from it.
I have buttons for "EXEC;PREVAVS||=", and "EXEC;NEXTAVS||=", on the vis window and the timer issue means that after I select these buttons, the vis stops after 2 seconds but another movement gets them started again. A nuisance but not too hard to live with. I guess this is a function of the VISU command being a toggle for on and off and thats a constraint from winamp.
Guino - Thanks for the probably very good direction, but once you mentioned variables, my brain had a blue screen moment. I am more of a spanner type of guy. Programming scares me....... A lot.
Thanks again for your help fellas, if you have any peals of wisdom for vis switching off after mouse movements issue, I'm all ears.
Oh and Anthony, sorry about the confusion but I think you can appreciate the car reference.... I've never met an Anthony I didn't like. Great name.