Periodical refresh of grid data

[wallytax]

I have a Tabset for entities (Orders, Customers, Users, etc.). Each tab of it has a nested TabSet as pane that show the list of all entities in the first tab and as soon as a record in that grid is clicked, another tab opens with the record's details.

What I would like to do in one of those grids (Orders), is to refresh its data every N minutes. My first guess is to use Javascript's native setInterval() method, but there's a couple of things to concern: refreshing should only be necessary if the nested tab is visible and in particular the tab with the grid in it (thus not if for instance the Customers tab is shown or a tab for an individual record of the Orders module).

Any ideas, tips?

[wallytax]

To make the question more explicit:

Is there an event that occurs when a tab pane is shown or hidden? No matter what caused it? If a TabSet is nested it is also hidden when its parent switches to another tab. The periodical execution is taken care off, but I can't completely disable it when the parent tab switches.