[kde-linux] Kate Toolbars (Again)

[Hal Vaughan]

I'm still having trouble with Kate toolbars, but now I can predict 
what's going on, and it seems like there's a problem with a pointer 
somewhere, so this may help.  I don't program in C or C++ and I'm self 
taught.  I've had problems filing bug reports before on open source 
projects, so I don't want to file a bug report until I feel like I have 
enough to give a good description and someone here can tell me if I'm 
providing useful information.  (In the past, in OpenOffice and a few 
other programs, I've filed bug, tried to give a good description, and 
was criticized by in the response.  It's happened a couple times, with 
comments being for different reasons, but it's led me to think that 
developers tend to want an excuse to close the bug more than a reason 
to fix it, and if that means blaming the messenger, do it that way.)

I'm using Kate and KDE 3.5.2 in Kubuntu Dapper Drake (I think that's 
Kubuntu 5.04).  I may be upgrading soon to Edgy Eft, but I don't like 
upgrading until a release has been out for a while so the initial bugs 
are fixed.

Here's the problem:

Originally when I used edited toolbars that were set to give me what I 
wanted, the toolbars would be different for each text file.  I went 
through .kde/share/apps and killed all the Kate config files and also 
in .kde/share/config and did the same thing.  That way I started Kate 
with no config at all.  For a while it worked.  The toolbars remained 
constant.  Then I added the Reload icon to the Kate Part view tool bar 
and trouble started.  All files got the same new toolbar, which was 
what I wanted.  However, when I switched from one file to another, I 
noticed the toolbar changed.  I finally was able to track down what was 
happening.  The Kate Main toolbar is on the left, followed by the Kate 
Part toolbar.  The Part toolbar starts moving one icon to the left each 
time I change a file, until the Main toolbar is gone.  While this is 
happening the Main toolbar icons will show up at the right end of the 
icons, but not in order.  As I keep switching files, all the Part 
toolbar icons will "slide" off the left until all I'm left with are the 
original Main toolbar icons, in their original order.

It seems to me there is a problem with tracking a pointer.  Again, I'm 
not a C programmer, but I do use Java and Perl.  My guess is that a 
pointer for the icons is using 1 or 0 for the start of the icon list 
when it should be using the other (i.e. using 1 instead of 0 or using 0 
instead of 1), but that's just a guess.

There are some bugs that look close to this, but I'm not sure if it's 
the same one, and this could be fixed in the next version above 3.5.2 
(is there one without going to KDE 4 beta?).

If anyone has ideas how I can fix this irritation (and it is a big one 
for me and the way I work), it would be appreciated.  I'd rather wait a 
few more weeks before upgrading to Edgy Eft.

Thanks for any feedback or suggestions in filing bug reports on this.

Hal