Thus spake Leendert Meyer:
Ha, just discovered something. I have a "test" user, and I deleted it's .kde directory completely, and started kde3, and subsequently Kate. It chuckled somewhat, I closed it, started Kate again, and presto: Kate with a docked dir&file tree, and it just worked as before. :-)
Our problem seems to be a configuration file problem. Delete/rename ~/.kde/share/apps/kate and ~/.kde/share/config/katerc, and try again. Problem solved?
Actually, I just found a simpler solution, and I'm feeling like a bonehead for not noticing it before. :-P Bottom of the list shows a "filter" function. Apparently it's set to filter out, well, everything. I hit the "filter" icon so it would "clear filters", and presto! There be my files! Arrrrr! Weird that that's set that way though. I never used that filter before. Later! Joe