Get a value from an object, given a dotted path of property names,
for instance: "Model.SelectedObject" returns the value for:
anObject.getModel().getSelectedObject()
This method returns whether the last action sent by the last control was in the midst of a series of changes, like
inside a mouse loop (or the dragging of the knob on a slider).
This method calculates how much bigger the panel needs to be to accommodate the preferred size of all UI
components and grows the panel and all controls proportionally by that amount.