In-Game Menu and Game Logs

Hi guys,

Been a while since my last post, life is busy.

I am building a tiles-based game, you can download a .JAR of it from the link below (nothing big yet):

I want to implement a log menu at the bottom of game screen where, say, when the user open a door it will write that a door was opened. I imagine that to do so I have to add a layer to my tiled map with screen shown, is that the right way? Specially that I will later have to move the camera with the player movement to show the rest of the map.

The other thing is the implementation of in-game menu like a menu that pops-up when I open a chest containing the items inside it (the map have to be still shown). Should I make 2 layers for such thing with one containing the menu structure and one with the objects (because I want to hide the tile of the object when the player take it.

Thanks in advance.