Widgets as textures

Hello,

I am trying to implement a main menu navigation which is more interesting than just buttons.

This is the idea:
In the middle of the menu there is a large sphere that is partially clear so you can see through it. There are four MyGUI static text objects that I want to put around this sphere so when you rotate it you can click the corresponding static text. Although it probably be hard to texture the sphere with the static text, I want the static text to wrap on the surface of the sphere. Then when you click on a button.... like for example a "Settings" button, a MyGUI window appears that is initially wrapped around the sphere and then unwraps and becomes just a normal MyGUI window.

Any suggestions on how I can get started?

You should look at UnitTest_Layers - it is good example of Layer used as texture for 3D panel with clicking on elements of that panel. So wrapping static text on a sphere is not a big deal.
And what about Window wrapped on a sphere - you probably should make fake 3D window using texture animation (see UnitTest_Texture animations as starting point) for that.