Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> Now the settings seem to stick on my desktop. Before, setting "save
session" on exit would bring back the "Documents" window.

The Tool View changes are session specific. The Tool View settings,
for the session that you open Kate with, will be used for all sessions
that you open using the Session menu. If you don't change all saved
sessions, things can get weird. If you start with a changed session,
all sessions will appear changed. If you start with an unchanged
session, none will appear changed.