How to Use Quanta Plus, the Web Developer Tool with Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Quanta Plus also has a lot really nice advanced features. For example, there is the nice built-in bookmark feature. To use it, simply select the line you want to bookmark, and then click Bookmarks→Add Bookmark. Every time you want to go to that line again, simply click the bookmark (under the Bookmarks menu), and you'll jump to that location automatically. This is especially useful for those times when you need to debug something but can't do it right away.

Of course, Quanta Plus can't do everything by itself. However, that's where the powerful plugins come in. For example, there is the HTML Tidy plugin that comes with Quanta Plus. To activate it, run Tools→HTML Tidy Syntax Checking (or Ctrl-Alt-T). This essential tool debugs your code, pointing to all those nonstandard-compliant code bits that you just happened to leave out (or leave in). Another powerful plugin I frequently use is KFileReplace (Plugins→KFileReplace). Quanta Plus has a decent Find and Replace program built in, but it searches in only the current document. However, I often want to find and replace a certain word in every file in my project. For example, if I change my domain from andrewmin.net to andrewmin.com, I want to replace all instances of andrewmin.net with andrewmin.com. That's when KFileReplace comes in. Just run it, type in what to search for (like andrewmin.net) and what to replace it with (like andrewmin.com), the location and the filter (maybe you don't want to replace andrewmin.net in your HISTORY.TXT file) and click Search Now. KFileReplace will hunt down every string that includes your search term and replace it with your term. There are many more (look under the Tools menu and Plugins menu to see most of them).

Figure 3. The Find and Replace Dialog

Obviously, no Web development tool is perfect. And one day, perhaps there will be a perfect tool that will do everything you want it to do and then some. When that day comes, I'll be the first to download it. Until then, you can find me right here, using my wonderful Quanta Plus.