Help with an expanding panel, showing a label

[sp00ks]

I have tried to create a panel that expands showing a label(in a datalist),essentially something like http://www.pcworld.com/article/197072/40_cool_gadgets_for_a_hot_summer.html would be great,though if its smaller than the certain size, don't have a show more.

I have some slight problems though, I can't seem to generate if the panel should shrink (if label has a height greater than 200 the panel should shrink to 200, or I am willing to use if the label has over 350 characters, as i don't think I can grab the label height as I don't have one set) and if the label doesn't have a height of 200, or character amount of 350, then don't show the read more button.

So far I have this code in the ItemCreate in my datalist, but unfortunetly lbl1.Height.value is always equaled to 0. Any help would be greate

if (lbl1.Height.Value > 200.0)
    {
        pnl1.Height = 200;
        btn1.Visible = true;
    }
    else
    {
        pnl1.Height = lbl1.Height;
        btn1.Visible = false;
    }