I'm using Shiki-Wise as a gtk theme and the notification area does not have the same background as the rest of the panel. This used to work fine in xfce4-panel 4.6.x. See the screenshot attached.
Mm that's odd. Will get my glasses first to look at the attachment first (<- hint)...
Created attachment 2867 Screenshot Sorry...
I'm using the GTK+ theme "dust"[0] and I notice the exact same problem, but it looks like it is not related to the notification icon but more generally to external plugins. I have tested the notes plugin which runs inside the wrapper and I notice the same problem -- note that the nofication icon also runs in the wrapper -- so the problem is the background is as the default window background color (grey) instead of the panel color (black). These themes use different background colors, one for the main window, and one for the menubar/toolbar and for the panel too. [0] https://launchpad.net/dusttheme From the gtkrc file of the theme these lines that are relevant: # Panel stuff widget "*PanelWidget*" style "panel" widget "*PanelApplet*" style "panel" widget "*fast-user-switch*" style "panel" # Workaround for Fast User Switch applet class "PanelApp*" style "panel" class "PanelToplevel*" style "panel" widget_class "*Panel*<GtkMenuBar>*" style:highest "panel" # The panel menubar widget "*TomboyTray*" style "panel" # Workaround for Tomboy widget "*TomboyApplet*" style "panel" #XFCE panel widget_class "*notif*" style "panel" widget_class "*Notif*" style "panel" widget_class "*Tray*" style "panel" widget_class "*tray*" style "panel" widget "*Xfce*Panel*" style "panel" class "*Xfce*Panel*" style "panel" Not sure if the wrapper application has a widget, but if than it can perhaps be named to "XfcePanelPlugin" and it may fix this problem, not exactly sure however...
Created attachment 2868 Other screenshot PS: the dust theme is available in Archlinux under gtk2-theme-dust and gtk2-theme-dust-extras (I'm using "Dust Burnt" currently from -extras)
Much simpler then that, the wrapper had not a proper theme name. Should be fixed now.
I found out one case where the background colour is not correct, for an auto-hidden panel. When the panel is hidden it will pick up a light grey colour instead of the dark black one.
Fixed that too. The widget names are now XfcePanelWindow, XfcePanelWindowHidden, XfcePanelWrapper.
Renamed the 4.6 plugins to XfcePanelWindowExternal, and wrapper to XfcePanelWindowWrapper. Now everything will match XfcePanelWindow* (they all have GtkWindow as parent, so it makes sense).