I think this is a correct observation, we need a way to change the default settings for use with new/unsaved sessions.

This annoyed me a lot too, even though I just installed KDE 3.5 a couple of days ago. I found a way around it. I changed the settings so that the window configuration is remembered as a part of a session. I also set it to not save sessions on exit so that the stored window configuration never changes. It worked. I was happy. I could start Kate without the Documents tool opened. But, I soon realized that I had not solved the problem completely. When I double-clicked a file, which opened in Kate, the Documents tool opened again. For someone, who just opens the same exact set of files and nothing else, this might not be a problem. Such a person would never have to double-click anything. There's probably more people like me, who open files randomly and by clicking on them. I am also wondering why one would make this tool open at start in first place. What kind of a scenario would justify it? If I just opened Kate without opening any files, there would be nothing in the Documents tool anyway. If I clicked on a file, that file would be open and I would want to do something with it. It is highly unlikely that after having just opened a file the first thing one would want to do is to open another. If I opened Kate and Kate just opened a saved session (for example, I am a programmer and I work all day long every day on the same set of files), then the file I would want to work on is already open and there is no need for opening the Document tool at start. Why the hack did you, guys, do this? Enlighten me.

Just for clarity's sake, of course I meant the "Tab Bar plug-in". Typo. :-)

Same problem here. 

As Fikret, I've defined my own default session with custom layout (toolbar,filelist, windows size,...). Whenever I run kate without opening any file, it loads my layout, but if I open a file from konqueror or command line, it uses a new session with the default layout!!! It's really annoying!!!

Kate help shows:
# kate --help
...
  -s, --start <name>        Start Kate with a given session
...

But it doesn't work. If <name> is an existing session, instead of using it, kate creates a new session with the same name.

If someone knows how to force kate to use the session layout I've created not only when opening a blank session but also when opening an existing file please tell me.

A solution could be setting the default session name customizable, as suggested in bug #114602

In the SVN version of kate the bug seems solved

# cd /usr/portage/distfiles/
# tar -xvjpf kdebase-3.5.0.tar.bz2
# rm kdebase-3.5.0.tar.bz2
# cd kde-base/
# rm kate -r
# svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/KDE/3.5/kdebase/kate
# cd /usr/portage/distfiles/
# tar -c kdebase-3.5.0/ | bzip2 > kdebase-3.5.0.tar.bz2
# ebuild /usr/portage/kde-base/kate/kate-3.5.0.ebuild digest
# emerge kate

Then, open the default session, configure kate to inlude window decoration when  a session is saved and go to "Sessions->Save"

Hope it helps.

On Sunday 08 January 2006 19:57, Stolz wrote:
> Then, open the default session, configure kate to inlude window decoration
> when 

SVN commit 497995 by alund:

Read window configuration from default session when starting a new one.
CCBUG: 116511


 M  +9 -0      README  
 M  +30 -0     app/katesession.cpp  


--- branches/KDE/3.5/kdebase/kate/README #497994:497995
@@ -17,3 +17,12 @@
 
 Licensing:
 The Kate app/utils/interfaces and KWrite app are licensed under the LGPL VERSION 2.
+
+                *** Undocumented features in Kate version 2.5.1 ***
+The following changes didn't make it into the documentation for version 2.5.1
+
+* When starting a new session, the GUI configuration of default session is loaded.
+To save window configuration in the default session, you need to enable saving
+window configuration in the sessions configuration page of the configuration
+dialog and then load the default sesison, set up the window as desired and save
+the session again.
--- branches/KDE/3.5/kdebase/kate/app/katesession.cpp #497994:497995
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
 #include <qhbox.h>
 #include <qcheckbox.h>
 #include <qdatetime.h>
+#include <qmap.h>
 
 #include <unistd.h>
 #include <time.h>
@@ -85,8 +86,10 @@
   }
 
   // filename not empty, create the file
+  // anders: When will this ever happen???
   if (!m_sessionFileRel.isEmpty())
   {
+    kdDebug(13001)<<"Kate::Session: initializing unexisting file!"<<endl;
      // uhh, no name given
     if (m_sessionName.isEmpty())
     {
@@ -100,6 +103,27 @@
     KSimpleConfig config (sessionFile ());
     config.setGroup ("General");
     config.writeEntry ("Name", m_sessionName);
+
+    // If this is not the default session, copy GUI properties from that.
+    if ( m_sessionFileRel != "default.katesession" )
+    {
+      int cnt = 0;
+      QString group;
+      KSimpleConfig defaultConfig( m_manager->sessionsDir() + "/default.katesession" );
+      while ( defaultConfig.hasGroup( group = QString("MainWindow%1").arg(cnt) ) )
+      {
+        config.setGroup( group );
+        QMap<QString,QString> map = defaultConfig.entryMap( group );
+        QMap<QString,QString>::ConstIterator it;
+        for ( it = map.begin(); it != map.end(); ++it )
+          config.writeEntry( it.key(), it.data() );
+
+        cnt++;
+      }
+      config.setGroup( "Open MainWindows" );
+      config.writeEntry( "Count", cnt );
+    }
+
     config.sync ();
   }
 }
@@ -278,6 +302,11 @@
     if (sc)
       KateApp::self()->documentManager()->restoreDocumentList (sc);
 
+    // if we have no session config object, try to load the default
+    // (anonymous/unnamed sessions)
+    if ( ! sc )
+      sc = new KSimpleConfig( sessionsDir() + "/default.katesession" );
+
     // window config
     if (sc)
     {
@@ -891,3 +920,4 @@
 
   KateSessionManager::self()->activateSession(slist[(uint)i]);
 }
+// kate: space-indent on; indent-width 2; replace-tabs on; mixed-indent off;

This should be fixed by applying the patch attached to bug #156330. Can you confirm?

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 156330 ***