def is_special_view(view):
    """Determine if the current view is a special view.

    Special views are mostly referring to panels. They are different from normal views
    in that they cannot be the active_view of their windows, therefore their ids 
    shouldn't be equal to the current view id.
    """
    return view is not None and view.window() and view.id() != view.window().active_view().id()