Hi chessdon,
Thanks for posting your question here. The scrolling gallery will pick up new items when it refreshes, which happens automatically about every 4 hours, so it is normal for it to take up to 4 hours from when you add new items for the new items to have the potential to be displayed in your scrolling gallery.
If you make an item "hidden" in the Manage Items section under the "Store" tab within your account, those items will not be displayed in your Auctiva scrolling gallery.
On the other hand, if you make an item "featured" on your Manage Items page, that listing will always be displayed in your scrolling gallery. The scrolling gallery can display a maximum of 16 items at any given time so marking an item as "featured" does not really have an impact when you have 16 or less active listings.
I hope this helps. If you need any further assistance with your account, please feel free to contact our customer support team by mousing over the "Help" tab on the site and selecting the "File Support Case" option.
-Mike