How to force a ScriptUI docked panel to resize/update

Hi, I've been trying to figure this out for days now. I've searched everything I can think to search and can't find a suitable answer.

I have a function that hides a child panel. This works fine, but leaves a space where the panel used to be. If I manually resize my docked window it fixes the issue, but I want it to do this automatically without manually resizing. Is there a way to force the docked window to resize? Or is there some other way to do this?

I'm using .layout() and an onResize function to accomplish what I have so far. I've tried playing with the windows max size but again, this doesn't show until a resize happens and it only affects the inner elements, not the actual docked window size. I've tried using a notify("onResize") but it always throws an error saying notify is undefined. I'm missing some fundamental understanding here, but I don't know what.

To summarize what I want to do: When a button is clicked in a docked window, I want to hide a panel in that window and have the extra space hidden too, without having to manually resize. I also want to reverse this. 

Here's a small portion of my code to show you where I'm at with this:

function buttonHelpTestDown () {
            var maxSize = pnl.grp.maximumSize;
            if (pnl.grp.groupControls.groupTools.groupBuildCurvePreset.panelBuildCurve.maximumSize[0] > 0) {
                pnl.grp.groupControls.groupTools.groupBuildCurvePreset.panelBuildCurve.maximumSize = [0,0];
            } else {
                pnl.grp.groupControls.groupTools.groupBuildCurvePreset.panelBuildCurve.maximumSize = maxSize;
            }
            //prevent draw panel from disappearing
            var drawSize = pnl.grp.panelGridDraw.size;
            pnl.grp.panelGridDraw.minimumSize = drawSize;
            //refresh layout
            pnl.layout.layout(true);
            //reset draw panel min size
            pnl.grp.panelGridDraw.minimumSize = [0,0];
        }

        pnl.layout.resize();
        pnl.onResizing = pnl.onResize = function() {
            this.layout.resize();
        }

I'm so close to getting this to work right. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks.