Created attachment 76221 [details]
Kate gui ConfigureToolbars against actual toolbar

The panel that sets the Toolbar items (Settings - Configure Toolbars - split selection) bears little or no relationship to what actually appears on the toolbar.
I find it hard to believe nobody else has noticed this - at least I did not find any similar observations here - or is it just me? (And consistently between distros?)
I happen to be using Mint 13 KDE just now, but I've seen this behaviour before, 
Kate is "Version 3.8.3 Using KDE Development Platform 4.8.3 (4.8.3)"

Right now, selected in the gui (after my addition of the Open Recent) I see:
Open
New
Open      
Open Recent
--- separator ---
--- separator ---
--- separator ---
(X) Close
--- separator ---
--- separator ---
--- separator ---
whereas the toolbar shows:
                                               (? first "Open" not there)
New
Open 
Open Recent
 separator |
Back                                       (where did that come from?)
Forwards                                     (and where is that specifed?)
 separator |
Save                                      (and that?)
Save As                                   (and that?)
 separator |
(X) Close
 separator |
   > newline
Undo                     (Rabbits out of hats?)
Redo                          (and hares?)    (Plus, 'next line' items are almost impossible to use) 

If I were to apply a Wilcoxon ranking test, that would be pretty much a fail.

I enjoyed the joke of the missing Open in position 00. 

The other non-correspondences just left me cold, bamboozled. They must have made sense at the time, to someone, I suppose. Maybe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  ALLIED GRIPES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bringing me to further gripes:
I wanted 'Open Recent' because I find it useful.
I did nOt want an icon and text taking up so much real-estate in the toolbar.

In fact, I find all the toolbar entries are cumbersome, too big, too wordy, amateurish.
I'm sure better could be done.

The extra term shoves the undo/redo onto a second 'on demand' line, unless the Kate panel is full (or large enough) width.
That second pop-down toollbar is almost impossible to use without a suprememly steady hand - one must move cursor down and along the entire line without losing it. Thank Heaven for T'ai Chi Chuan and gin.

Not that I would use Undo/Redo  -- I'd use ctrl+Z etc
So wouldn't it be useful to add the hotkeys to the icons? 
Ctrl+S for Save. Ctrl+W for X-Close (go figure)? etc. etc.
Perhaps as tooltips, if not creating too much bloat?

So, my aim was achievable with the gui plus only a little mystery puzzlement.
That gui has a plethora of other options I didn't go into, but with no clear pointer to documentation, anywhere. Just go search Help. (I didn't - I'm making a massive assumption that there is actually such documentation. Congratulations if there is.) I expect they are very useful to someone who knows what they do.
My point is that descriptions of such options should be available at "point of sale", not squirreled miles away elsewhere.

That's it.