I changed the File Associations for doc and rtf files into soffice. Since then, OpenOffice starts up whenever I try to open ANY directory. It just starts up, briefly flashes its opening screen, and then apparently gives up again :-(

What is wrong here?

I had a similair one open some other program. I was modifying File Association at the time as well. I tried undoing everything I had done to now avail. Final was was to backup some directories and reset KDE configs back to default install. To do this I dropped to run level 3 or if one logs out to a login manager this will work as well. As init three goes goto your home directory and run the following commands.
mv .config .config_backup
mv .local .local_backup
mv .kde .kde_backup

Now return to init5. For slackware it might be init4.
Now you should be back to a default KDE config.

Brian

Yesterday evening, I got rid of the problem, at least its symptom, by right clicking on a directory, and selecting Open With...
I got a menu presenting soffice, and something I forgot, and Other..
I selected Other, got the selection menu, and typed in "Konqueror". I also checked the box "remember this selection".

Now everything is back to normal, although I still wonder about the cause...

Glad you got it working.

Brian

Just for the record. I recently accidentally associated a folder with Kate which opened with a flurry of complaints whenever I subsequently clicked on a folder.

Open the Konqueror settings > file associations. You want the category "inode". In that list you will find "directory". Oh, the relief.