Well, mwah set me straight on getting updated kate to customise, so I can stick there meantime. Problem was the switching of customisable dialogs around -- they were always laid out somewhat unintuitively for me, and the ever diminishing eyesight did not handle the new tangle.

Having found that, blasted the blinding preponderance of reddish colours, Kate now works fine for me as before, and I do also love the (better than EditPlus) extra features it provides -- a toggleable tack-on terminal emulator that follows your navigation around (most of the time) and 'string-search in subtree' functionality. All in all, I really do rate Kate.

I appreciate your contribution nonetheless.

cheers

Pstack