I saw a post asking a question I was interested in as well: Floating Taskbar Without Autohide on Window Maximise
The post is closed, so I figured I will post the solution here. I finally figured this out after lots of searching on the internet. Find the gnome-shell.css file for whichever theme you are using for your gnome shell.
The themes typically reside in ~/.themes/[theme you want to edit]/gnome-shell/gnome-shell.css or /usr/share/themes/[theme you want to edit]/gnome-shell/gnome-shell.css. Note that the latter is only editable by root.
Within gnome-shell.css , you want to add the following bit of code:
#panelBox {
padding-bottom: 0.35em;
padding-left: 0.9em;
padding-right: 0.9em;
}
You can play around with the numbers above to adjust the position to your liking. If your panel is on the top, then replace "padding-bottom" with "padding-top".
Also, if you want to add rounded corners (like the taskbar with the intellihide setting on), add the following:
#panel {
border-radius: 50px;
}
Change 50px to a lower value for less rounding.
For the changes to take effect, switch to a different theme and then back to the theme that you edited.
Enjoy!