Cs-Cart Messaging System (Customer To Vendor/owner To Vendor)

Few questions,

1) With regard to the Messaging centre on cs-cart, when a vendor messages a seller, the vendor receives an email telling them they have a message, however the inevitably will be times where these emails may be missed, or be read by someone and not actioned or messages passed on, However when the seller logs in to the vendor portal, there is no notification anywhere on the dashboard to say they have an unread message from a customer, is there a way to have a notification icon anywhere to say they have an unread message from a vendor?

2) Currently the message centre is located at "Customers > Messaging centre"
Is there a way to create a tab on the dashboard homepage for "Messaging centre" so its not in a drop down but has a dedicated button that the seller cannot miss?

3) Is there an addon for Owner to Vendor messaging via the dashboard, It would make things much smoother to be able to message a vendor directly by a dashboard inbox similar to the customer to vendor message centre, it would also help track dialogue should there be any implications or disputes in future.

Thanks,

Lee