Galleria V2.8

Galleria is a slide show panel much like the one supplied with Desktop Sidebar...

Sample slideshow plugins are now included with the install in a zip file. Check the plugin installation directory.

Features:

2.8 (7-14-05)
- Peformance improvements when loading pictures. All image loading in the grid and film strip is done in low priority threads.
- Button transparency level can be set in on the properties "Display" tab.
- The film strip size can be set for when it shares space with the grid view.
- An option has been added to the properties to allow the film strip to display images randomly.
- For dynamic images in the film strip a "save/unsave" button is now available just like in the grid view though smaller.
- The film strip movement will now stop on mouse over but will scroll right or left as your mouse nears the right and left sides of the strip respectively.

2.7 (7-1-05)
- Many fixes for exception errors in the film strip.
- Improved film strip threading to be more efficient.
- Complete revamp for configuration saving routines. (Note their still backwards compatable.)

2.6 (6-26-05)
- Performance improvements to the film strip view.
- Better handling of missing files for film strip view.
- Added ability to disable grid view via context menu.
- Default film strip speed is configurable.
- The film strip can now be set to pause for a specified amount of time after each image.
- When selecting an image via the film strip not only will it open in the grid view but it will open an details window as well.

2.5 (6-23-05)
- Fixed a major bug preventing the properties dialog from opening under certain circumstances.
- Added an option to enable a "Film Strip". This can be found in the context menu (right click). The "Film Strip" will display all currently configured images sequentially by directory in a scrolling strip.
- You can left click on any film strip image to load it into a frame below for further viewing.
- When you position the mouse near the left or right edge of the film strip it will scroll the pictures in that direction. Note you can only scroll backwards up to 20 images. There are two speeds depending on how close to the edge you position the mouse.

2.4 (6-21-05)
- Improved the random file selection. It now selects a random file from all available files. This helps reduce the chance of duplication.
- The dynamic image system now adds the source URL to the caption.
- If a source URL is specified in the caption a link button in the lower right corner of the window and a context menu option will be available to view the original source page for the image.
- You can assign a URL to an image by adding a line that reads "URL:" followed by the url to open in the caption for the image.
- If an image is from a dynamic source (plugin) an button in the upper middle of the frame will be available to "Save" the image. In effect this moves the image to a saved directory which will not be purged by the dynamic image collector.
- If you wish to unsave an image simply uncheck the save button and it will be returned to it's original location.
- A rare index error was corrected.
- Fixed a small bug in the random number generator.
- When in grid mode frames that are assigned a static source for images will track for duplicates seperately from the other frames.

2.2 (5-26-05)
- Added support for image captions. To see the caption either left click once in the detail window or select "Caption" from the right click menu in the panel. You can also edit captions when viewed from the right click menu.
- Added support to automatically collect image captions in the dynamic image plugin system. See sample slideshows for details.
- A collection of sample slideshows is included with the install. They are found in the directory where the plugin is installed inside a file named "Galleria Slideshow Samples 5-26.zip". Extract these to a directory of your choosing if you wish to use or examine them.
- A zoom/pan system has been added to the detail window. I went for a less conventional button free/keyboard free control system. To zoom, right click and drag up or down to zoom in and out. To pan left click and drag the image while zoomed.
- The button colors in the display tab of the panel settings will control the color for the zoom level text and caption frame.
- An option to set the selected image as the desktop wallpaper has been added to the right click menu. It will adjust the image to fit your primary monitor then display it.
- Added the option to add a timestamp to the filename in the dynamic image collector. This is usefull for images where the names don't change but the image does. Think webcam.
- Added the ability to construct your own string out of the regular expression results in the dynamic image system.
- Added a regular expression tester to the dynamic slideshow editor.
- Added a cancel option to the script testing function in the dynamic slideshow editor.
- You no longer have to save your node changes after each node edit.

2.1 (5-22-05)
- Added slideshow plugin designer. To launch look for a button under the plugin tab in the panel properties.
- Minor fix to relative path logic in dynamic image processor.

2.0 (5-21-05)
- Fixed a bug preventing the user from selecting smaller grid configurations.
- Add optional toolbar.
- Tool bar buttons can be custom colored and sized to best fit your skin and configuration. (Current buttons are forwards and backwards).
- Pause rotation when panel not visible. You can also manually pause the plugin through the right click menu.
- Support for dynamic images via image package plugins. These work much like the slideshow packages that come with Desktop Sidebar but their written in XML. Check the application thread for samples.
- Slideshow plugins can have either .xml or .gslideshow extensions.
- You can now set directores as excluded and it will honor the recurisve behavior with this too.
- A directory or plugin can be assigned to a particular frame and only that image will display there. It also gets it's own rotation schedule when you do this.
- The directory the plugins use to store their images can be configured through the control panel.
- The maximum resoultion for the details box has been increased to 2200x2200.
- Some performance optimizations.

1.2 (5-17-05)
- Option to display images sequentially or randomly.
- Allow anti-repeat level (Image History Size) to be user configurable.
- Add option not to recurse subdirectories for any given directory.
- Fixed panel holding image files open.
- Added context menu option to show previous image.
- Added context menu option to move/rename image.

1.1 (5-11-05)
- New pictures are available for display automatically.
- Improved random image selection routine with anti-repeat feature. (Currently defaults to 20 images.)
- Display images in a "grid" up to 10x10. (Performance will decrease when using this feature though depending on your settings not noticeably.)
- When in grid mode details window will update to picture under cursor when "Rotate Details" option is on.
- When in grid mode right and left click actions apply to the image under the cursor at the time of clicking.

1.0 (4-8-05)
- Add, Edit, Delete directories to display.
- Backup and Restore configurations.
- Show or hide file name in the panel.
- Control speed of transitions between pictures as well as rotation speed.
- AutoPin option for details box.
- Rotate details box pictures along with panel.
- Optional details box on hover (default is on left click).
- Middle mouse button forces rotation to next picture.
- Max picture size for details window is configurable.
- Pictures stretch to fit both in panel as well as details window.
- Many transition effects between images with more planned.
- Context menu option (right click) for next picture, open picture, open folder, delete picture, and refresh list.


Todo:

- Add option to control transition effects.
- Add gallery packages (define, save, and recall directory lists quickly)
- Add option to control transition effect and refresh rate for a static frame seperately.
- Add dual monitor support for wallpaper function.
- Add option for dynamic image plugins to restrict the size of the downloaded image.

Sample of details window zoom and caption:
Click to view attachment

Single picture display:
Click to view attachment

Grid display:
Click to view attachment

Context (right click) menu:
Click to view attachment

Dynamic Slideshow Editor:
Click to view attachment

Download Galleria Here

Wow Amazing I like it Especially the zoom in effect

Can't wait for an option ot add dynamic images And maybe you can also add a mini toolbar which will control the slideshow like the original Slideshow panel has

Thanks

I added the toolbar idea to the todo list.... Thanks for the feedback... I've already started on plans for my next plugin (I won't pimp it yet ) as I don't expect it to take long for me to finish my todo list on this one... I've also already got a few new transitions in testing as well...

If anyone finds any bugs be sure to let me know... One area I'm already expecting to find bugs in is processing of bad images... I should have an update out next week to address that...

Wonderfull

Thanks

I'll definitely have to check this one out, one question/suggestion, would it be possible to put a "Delete image" option on the right click menu? This is something I'd like to see in the Slideshow panel as well, but if you could do it I'd just have to jump the bandwagon to yours that much sooner. The reason I ask is I have hmm... plethora isn't enough, a veritable multitude doesn't quite sound right, lets just say more than a couple gigs of wallpapers/images, and some of them I haven't had time to sort, and I sort of use the Slideshow panel to help me sort, but having to right click and go to open folder and then find the blasted image (some folders are quite populous) is rather time consuming, if you could add the delete option (print would be cool also, but I don't print them that often) that would be terrific and incredibly useful. Thanks for the great looking panel, I'm going to have to try it out very soon.

BTW, can you please add a thumbnails feature ? I realy need it

Hehe Delete is already there (listed under features for the context menu aka right click menu)...

As for a Thumbnail feature yyy, what was it you had in mind?

I want an option to see thumbnails of all images inside the panel. I want to use it to see webcams images (I'm waiting for this option anyway) and I don't want to cycle through all of them - I want to see every webcam at once - Live That's why I want a thumbnails option. Hope you can do it. Thanks

Hmmm, experienced a "crash" or at least an exception that started the JIT debugger. I believe it was your panel that caused it because it was talking about "Image in and image out". I've removed the panel, but I'm going to put it back and see if I get the error again.

I'll see if I can dig up the delete feature, sounds like a great idea. Can't wait for the next version. Also, would it be possible to make clicking the image advance to the next one, I really miss that from the Slideshow panel as sometimes the images are poor quality or in bad taste and I'd like to move to the next one (and maybe delete the old one as well). Thanks for the great panel and I'll get back to you on the error.

*Edit*
Didn't get a chance to find the delete feature (was distracted by other things) but while it was running it did create the error again. Its an "out of memory error" (even with the 1.5GB of RAM I have available ).

I think I understand what your looking for.... It should be very doable though with a bit of reoranization of the graphics routines... Better to put in now than later though, I'll make it my next priority...

The click for next image is aready there though (due to a rush on my part) is current bound to the middle mouse button (the one that is also a wheel)... Because I'm aware not everyone has a middle mouse button it's also available in the context menu (right click)...

As for the crash you had, I'll put some more debug routines in the next release to help trap that one and chase it down... The most likely explanation is a corupt image causing one of .Net's image processing routines to go into a loop... I've watched my plugin a bit over long periods of time and don't currently have reason to believe there is a leak... (Not that I ever stop looking for those... )

Keep me posted on that error and see if you can find a pattern to it happening... Anything would help....

Great Thanks a lot BTW, are you going to release your source code soon ? I always wondered how to make fade slideshow using C#.

Cool!! Thank you really nice panel adding it......

Hmmm, just got the "out of memory" error again today. I'm not sure what the issue is, I do remote desktop to my computer occasionally, but the error apparently isn't critical because if I click continue DS and the panel continue working. It often appears to happen if I have the panel minimized. When remote desktopping the constant image changing can be a bit bandwidth consuming so I minimize it, and its often when I get back physically to my desktop that it has the error. Hope this helps some.

Also, my mouse is a Logitech and the middle mouse click to advance doesn't work for me. I had noticed this before with other applications, and I'd read in your description that it was middle button, but it hadn't worked and now after testing with a couple other mice I realized it was just the drivers for my mouse or something, so a choice of buttons to advance in the properties would be awesome. Thanks for the great panel.

Just got another error. Since these are non fatal errors DS and the panel keep running, so I'm just seeing what all issues I can bring to light.

Probobly after the next release... Going to be doing allot of code clean up...

Ok, thanks

I'm pretty sure what your seeing has to do with a corrupt image... Watch for the next release as it will have some additional error trapping to try to narrow down the problem your seeing...

Ok thanks!!! I've noticed that it only it happens quite often, and even when I don't remote desktop, so that's a variable that I think can be excluded. I've also noticed after a long while of running the Galleria panel Windows will come up with a warning about having to increase the virtual mem and my page file will start growing. Hopefully the upcoming release helps fix that.

I can't remember what all features were upcoming (will look back there in a minute) but I really miss the Set image as wallpaper option of the Slideshow. Looking at the TODO it seems like you basically have it set up to index the directories and then pull random images from the index? That's what I gather from the needing to add support for detecting new images, that would be an interesting feature as would some of the others mentioned. Another thing I really miss is the option to go back to the last picture displayed, sometimes it will change before I get a chance to "notice" and get a good look at it so I'd like to go back but I haven't seen this Slideshow functionality anywhere. Other than that this panel is awesome, I love the transitions and if there is a good way to go to the next image (maybe back and next buttons???) then it would be awesome, I have gotten used to the click for details and I think that maybe having back/next buttons next to the image title (if displayed) would be a great addition. Keep up the good work.

Adding a wallpaper option could be done... I have a seperate program I wrote to set wallpapers (with dual monitor support) I could pull the routines out of so it wouldn't take much to do... I'll add it to the list...



This is already on the list (though I don't recall if I put it in the official todo list yet)... Expect this feature sooner than later... (I hate refresh buttons)...



This can be done and will be though it will be tricky, especially after getting the "grid" display working... The way this will likely work is it will keep a rolling list of previous images so while you will be able to go forwards and backwards there will be a limit to how far "back" you can go... The addition of "dynamic images" will make this trickier still... Expect this feature, just not in the near future... I need to hammer out the other features first that will affect this...



Thanks... And also thank you for your patience... I really appreciate the feedback...

I just had another random idea hit me, sadly since I've grown used to weird quirks in my software I don't think twice about closing the invalid argument or out of memory error windows anymore but that's not a problem anyways, or if it is it'll get fixed eventually. I have been using Galleria for a while now but hadn't really looked at it much beyond a couple personal preference changes, but the backup/restore config is a great idea, it would be nice if DS itself could handle the different panels' configs, but having a restore within the panel is a great workaround. So on to the idea, I noticed that when I have it set to display the image name when you mouseover it underlines the name, making it look like a clickable link. That's when the idea struck me, that you should make it a clickable link, to open up the picture in the default image viewer/editor. A single click on the image to open the details window works well, and if there are any forward/back buttons in the future that would be rocking, and being able to open the image for editing or viewing full size at a click would be awesome.

I know not everyone likes a "cluttered" interface, personally I like being able to see all the options in front of me, some would call me a "mouse person" but I am equally comfortable doing keyboard only navigation, I just think with DS as an "interactive" sidebar having buttons available directly in the interface is a bit nicer than right clicking then mousing over then left clicking then clicking again. I haven't had that with this panel (expect when deleting, but that's a Windows thing). Maybe an option for the "interactive" interface and another option for the "minimalist"/picture viewer interface. I use Galleria for not only viewing my collection but also for sorting and random bits of inspiration (although sometimes it doesn't seem that random, usually after a lot of the errors) and perhaps some people just have it to go through pictures of their family (excellent use, when I have a family someday that's a very likely use for it ). Just more cents from me, though not all of it might make sense.

I just posted Galleria 1.1... In addition to the features listed it also traps errors when loading the images... If you feel like images are not showing up you might want to check your Desktop Sidebar log... It will show which image it had a problem with and what the problem was...

It can be found at:

C:\Documents and Settings\<your user ID here>\Local Settings\Temp\dsidebar.log

Hope you like it, this release sets the foundation for many of the more requested features...

With this release, the code rewrite is half way done too so perhaps in another release or so I'll be making the source code available too... On that note I should mention that this being a labor of love I'm reluctant to hand out my source, but on the other hand I'm very into open source and what it offers the community... I have some ideas on how I can approach this and still keep the control freak in me happy... Soon, very soon...

Great work!!!

i have an important idea: when i close the panel the gallery go forward... is possible to stop the sequence of images when the panel is closed..?

Sure... I'll add it to the list... Thats an easy one.. and great idea... thx...

I'd not just stop the sequence (which IMHO matters only if they can be displayed sequentially... if they're already randomized, what's a "sequence"? ) but stop processing as well, so as not to chew up CPU cycles uselessly.

Thats already handled in how the drawing is done... Much like how the system doesn't paint applications you've minimized... The thread that updates the animation sequence position and loads new pictures is a different one from the one that draws the images...

(To observe this, assuming none of your other panels cause heavy load, you can watch dsidebar in your task manager... Make sure you have it set to roll to a new image as quickly as possible... You'll see when the animations occure a small CPU spike occures in sidebar... It lasts till the animation is done... Now minimize the galleria window and look again... You'll still see a spike but it will only happen very briefly depending on the number of images you have in your list... What your seeing is the plugin scan for a new image but not go through the animation process of transitioning to the new image...)

As for the reason behind it, I can see having a few images visible your interested in and having to minimize it due to the boss/wife/kid/etc coming into the room and wanting to pick up where you left off after they leave...

Sequential display is coming soon btw... The new random routine is complicating the process but I have some ideas to resolve that...

Wow - can't wait for the dynamic images option to be added Great job on the images thumbnails Exactly what I wanted

I set it to show the comics slideshow directory so I can see all my comics at once

BTW, please add an option to set it not to show sub directories Also set it not to use the actual images, I have to turn off the panel in order to delete directories then. Just make a copy in the memory of the images you use and then people will be able to delete the images even if the panel works.

My reason is shared space in a stack with news and weather... even at 1200 pixel desktop height, space is at a premium Also, I like to have a way to switch off unnecessary CPU use when needed, though I admit Galleria is not that hog

You know, it's funny you mention that... I've noticied this myself but I had thought I WAS loading it into memory... In fact I load the image into an object then scale it down to a more reasonable size and use the scaled image so I don't have to consume so much memory for the thumbnails... I'm going to have to figure this one out... It bugs me too...

Now that said I've found that the "delete" option in the panel seems to work even when deleting the file directly doesn't work...

I'll get this hammered out for the next release...

Thanks again for the great feedback everyone...

- Bidi

when will be ready the next release?

Some random thoughts and ideas.

I love Galleria and I prefer to use it with 8 images, 2 high x 4 wide. But sadly I find the images are not rotating well at all. I have 3 directories on my hard drive in the settings containing probably around 600 images, yet I only see about 20 or so, over and over until it drives me crazy. Is this a known problem?

I love the delete function it's sorely missing from the SlideShow IMHO, I still use SlideShow to auto fetch images and then use Galleria to display them along side my own collection (well thats the intention anyway).

It would be nice to also add a few features found in the slideshow, like. set as wallpaper and clicking the images cycles them. You could make clicking a thumbnail cycle through just that directory fetched perhaps? Also image captions are displayed in full view.

On the floating view it would be nice to see the directory path (or at least the last 30 characters of the path) and the image weight in particular. And how about a right click send to email function. A zoom function on the floating image would be very neat, particaulary if you could select the area to zoom. And over all welldone and what is already a great plugin!

Thanks
Brendan

Use this: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...10082&hl=delete for the image delete problem

Since my last post I've found the solution to the problem... I've seen and tried solutions similar to the one on Neowin though most of them don't work or only work under certain circumstances...

The solution that works every time doesn't make me happy but it does work... I load in the image then "paint" it over a new empty bitmap object and use the new object after disposing the original...

Incidentally in examining this I think I found a bug in Windows XP Explorer where if you try to edit/delete a file that is in use it will also lock the directory... Killing and restarting the Explorer shell would release it... I haven't done enough testing to confirm this conclusively but I was able to consistently reproduce it untill I added the "nolock" code...

The next release has the file locking issue resolved though... thanks for the input...

There are no known issue that would cause this... Personally I have bout 3k images in half a dozen directories... Check out the dsidebar.log file and see if any of the images are failing to load... You may have some images that are throwing errors... If the majority of them are we'll have to examine this further... Saying that, I have yet to have an error loading images... Also can you list out your system specs, OS/.NET version, Hardware, Sidebar version, etc...



Dynamic images are coming very soon... Though the format won't be compatible with Slideshow's packages unless I figure out something else between now and then... This just means the slideshows will have to be rewritten to be compatible with Galleria...



Most of this is already in Galleria... Try using the middle mouse button (if you have one) and clicking on an image... Image captions are another story... Not all image formats support captions and most of the captions you see in Slideshow come from the dynamic images through a seperate call... Something like this will happen some day but at the moment it's not even on my radar (except as part of the dynamic images)...



I assume by image weight your refering to the physical size? I don't see a problem there... easily done... Displaying some of the directory can be done too though horizontal space may be an issue... I'll see what I can do there...

Zoom is an interesting idea... "Doing" stuff on the details window can be a bit tricky at times... I'll have to investigate that one before I can say if I can add that...

No promise yet but adding an email option to the context menu many be doable...

Thanks for the feedback...

- Bidi

Just put out another update to Galleria... Tons of new features... Beyond the features listed at the head of this thread, if an image has an error loading it will display a red "X" where the image should be... I'm still working out the details of this process...

Enjoy....

- Bidi

@ Bidimus
you have introducted the feature of stop the slide of images when close the panel? i don't see it!

You know, I was going to post on this... The problem is though it should be simple, I haven't found any way to detect the collapsed state of the panel... Without that I have no way of doing it... It would be trivial to do otherwise... I can however provide a method to manually pause the panel... I'll put that into the next release...

- Bidi

What about CPanelConfig::IsExpanded() ?

Your my hero... This is usable... While it isn't event driven which is what I'd prefer so I don't have to keep checking the state I can however create the desired effect... There will still be some cycles used because I'll have to keep checking the expanded state but I can work with that....

Thanks

By the way, a little teaser... Buttons for forwards and backwards navigation are in the next release... Watch for it in a day or so...

- Bidi

WooHoo! Can hardly wait for the buttons. As someone mentioned above, my Galleria show really isn't that random. I noticed this and thought maybe it was just the fact that I had a lot of dupes, but I've done a thorough dupe clean and so I don't have any other than some that are different sizes of the same image (for wallpapers) and the handy thing about Galleria is the image name showing up as well, and it tells me its the same files getting cycled over and over. I am also still getting the Out of Memory error and the Invalid parameter error occasionally, I haven't checked the log yet since I have been working with other things, but someday a solution will present itself.

I now find images are rotating much more freely in v1.2. I hope "make wallpaper" still makes it soon.

I think been able to set the thumbnail dimesions would be great. My screen resolution is set to 1600x1200 and the thumbnails are extremely small when 4 wide x 3 high. The thumbnail sizes appears to be determined more so by height than width. I have large gaps on the sides of each image but no gap at all above or below.

I also discovered a bug where after changing grid to 4 x 4 I can not reduce the grid size. I change it higher though, (now 5x5, but I get "an unhandled exception" error. I can email the details if you like. I even tried closing the panel, editing a Galleria backup and restarting but it made no difference.

Also the ability to accept higher res. settings than than 1100x1100 would be good for high res. users.

And what doi you think about adding a "exclude these folders option? I like the recursive switch, but for say the "My Pictures" folder I would like to exclude about 5 folders, and it seems crazy to have to add the other 120 folders to achieve this currently.

Brendan

You can check for that in the Tick method.
That's what I always do with my panels - I usually don't want to update them if they're collapsed. Seems to me like a waste of resources.

What version of Desktop Sidebar and operating system are you running... The out of memory error really concerns me because galleria really isn't a hog as far as I've been able to detect so far... Also wondering if it is possible that in your image directory there is an exceptionally large file it might be trying to load... Do a search on file size in the image directories you have configured...

Perhaps I should put a file size contraint into the panel just to keep it from trying to work with rogues...

As for the same image being loaded over and over... There are two ways that could happen with the new radom routines... First you need to understand how the random routine works...

The way the new random routine works it will pick a dirctory from all the directires (and subdirectories if configured to) then pick a file from within that directory... To balance this there is an anti repeat routine that keeps track of previous pictures and unless it is unable to find a picture that hasn't been repeated in a reasonable number of tries it won't pick the same picture again... If however a non-repeat can't be found it will repeat a recent picture...

Now that said you can see how all directories have an even chance of being picked but because some directories have more files than others some files have larger changes of being picked than others based on the directory their in... Say you only have a few (say two for example) directories and one has a couple pictures in it and the other has hundreds... There is a 1 in 2 chance the smaller directory will be picked then a 1 in 2 chance one of those two images will be picked... However the other directoy also has a 1 in 2 chance of being picked but each of it's images have a 1 in 100 chance of being picked...


The other way it could happen is if the majority of your images can't/won't load... Then there will be far fewer images for it to choose from...

Describe if you could how you have your images organized and what file types they are...

Great to hear... Wallpaper isn't high on my priority list but being that it will be easy to implement you shouldn't have to wait too long...



The thumbnail sizes are automatically scaled based on the image size and the grid size to fill the available space of the panel without cutting off any of the picture... Adjusting the size of the galleria panel till you find a happy place often solves this... (Note by default Autofit is on, I recomend turning this off... What grid sizes and how large to make the panel all depend on the average shape of your images... If you have large gaps on the sides of your images then I'd say their fairly thin vertically...

As for the grid resizing, this is a known bug... I'm scrambling to get the next release out which solves this... If you made a backup before increasing grid size you can remove the panel from sidebar then add it back in and reload your settings from backup... This should get you back into a usable state...



Higher resolutions? Consider it done... I just adjusted it for the next release...

Excluding folders can be done... I'll add it to the list...

I agree though if your checking every tick your still doing "something"... An event driven notification you could set a pause flag when collapsed and unset it when uncollapsed... Then you wouldn't be checking all the time... Still this works... thanks...

Galleria 2.0 is posted... See the first post on this thread for details... There is also a sample dynamic image plugin in the first post... It's a translation of one of the default ones... I'll translate a couple others for people to use as examples...

A GUI editor will be coming soon for them...

- Bidi

It doesn't look like rotation is paused when the panel is collapsed though it works through the context menu... I have the panel inside a stack, if that matters, and when one of the other stacked panels is open pictures continue to rotate.

Ok, after carefull testing and debugging I've found the problem... It works when the panel is put on the sidebar straight... But under a stack the IsExpanded function is not updated when the stack is either collapsed or the panel within the stack is collapsed... Unless there is some other way of detecting this state I'd assume that any panels in the stack are also unable to detect their expanded state...

I also took the time to test a tile group after that... With a tile group the IsExpanded updates when the panel is collapsed but not if the tile group container is collapsed... This is a bug/limitation/feature of desktop sidebar... If it is a bug and they fix it my plugin will work as desired but beyond that this is out of my control...

Sorry for the bad news....

- Bidi