this is for my panel:

style "panel"
{
  bg[NORMAL] = "#E9B9D3"
  bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "panel89.png"
  fg[NORMAL] = "#000000"
  }

widget_class "*Panel*"      style "panel"
widget "*Panel*"            style "panel"
class "*Panel*"             style "panel"

This is in my gtkrc of my original Xfce-milkyblue gtk-2.0

I add boxfills to all the engine "xfce" parts:

engine "xfce"
    {
        grip_style = slide
        smooth_edge = true
    boxfill
        {
            fill_style = gradient
            orientation = vertical
            shade_start = 0.89 
            shade_end = 1.00
        }
    }
}

and then I change the shade_start/end percentages for different parts to the way I want it, or the orientation to = auto for the gradient to be different...

I use a boxfill for most all of my themes...this is my latest, and I only have to add a userChrome.css image for the Firefox tab-bar, you can even make a theme that doesn't need userChrome.css, but it is difficult to match it perfectly with the Firefox gradient tab-bar:

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161 … -121-2.png

PNGs don't scale on the XFCE panel and this causes some weird things if the panel is on a side of the screen or small.