@trom @futureisfoss there are two additional special layouts I could suggest, especially given we are talking about xfce. The first is a purely vertical dock, no top or bottom bar at all. This is used in MX linux.The other is a variant on gnome 3, where there is only a top bar, no dock, and the dock set live instead on the left side of the top panel. Typically the panel is only 24-26 pixels. So it's kinda like the windows view you have, but with a much thinner panel, and at the top.
@tio @futureisfoss @trom this was my take on vertical xfce desktops early last decade when we produced a customized Debian GNU/Linux distro for our tribal use.