Created attachment 7501 xfce4-panel-4.12.1-4 – Style: Adwaita-dark – option: Intelligently. Component on Fedora 27: xfce4-panel-4.12.1-4.fc27.x86_64 Note: The issue presently reported may be tied to the environment design and as a consequence may not be recognised as a classical issue by the developers team. Though the corrupted view in question here may hardly be the result of an intended code. Steps to reproduce: From the top panel, right-click Panel -> Panel preferences... -> In the default panel 1, on Display tab, at option Automatically hide the panel, switch from Never as default to Intelligently. As a result the desktop view is now corrupted, as illustrated in attachment. Reserved space between upper icons and the prompted panel is obviously needed in order to display a coherent view, in which all the icons placed on desktop would remain entirely visible as it is the case when option is set as Never. Issue occurs on both physical and virtual machines.
This is a known issue - not sure we can fix it. To explain it quickly: To allow the panel to be hidden in "intelligent hiding" it cannot set the socalled "Struts" (basically an area that the window manager is not allowed to cover with a window). The desktop uses the same mechanism to decide where not to place icons in order to avoid putting them under the panel. Hence there is a conflict that is not exactly easy to resolve...
That's true; so iIt could be closed a developper's way.
Closing a developer's way.