Over the years, the lack of quality desktop applications represented one of Linux's long-time drawbacks. As application after application has matured, that myth has certainly changed over the last few years. In the area of Web page editing, I recently came across a standout Web editor called Quanta Plus. 

Quanta Plus provides a professional-looking Web page editor for the K Desktop Environment (KDE). It helps you edit the HTML tags used in most Web pages and provides extensive features for working with PHP scripts. PHP is one way to create dynamic Web pages and is used on many popular Internet discussion sites.

Quanta Plus presents a good-looking user interface, but the default mode allows you to edit the HTML tags directly. This differs from many other Web editors that strive to hide complex HTML behind a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) interface. The problem with WYSIWYG interfaces is that you often need to manipulate the HTML directly to create the effects you want.

While Quanta Plus can display a preview of your Web site, most of the editing shows you the HTML tags, making Quanta Plus more of a tool for experienced Web page creators than novices.

Like a number of Web tools such as Adobe Go Live!, Quanta Plus supports the idea of projects. You can treat all the files for a given site as a project, allowing you to better manage the disparate files that go into any modern Web site. The ability to work with projects is an essential feature for Web site management.

Based at http://quanta.sourceforge.net/, Quanta Plus uses the KDE libraries. Note that even though Quanta Plus was written for the KDE desktop, you can run Quanta Plus under the GNOME desktop as well. (This is really true of virtually all KDE and GNOME applications, which run fine under any desktop, but worth repeating to avoid confusion.)

The designers of Quanta Plus also integrated the program with a number of tools, such as wget to allow you to download a Web site for editing, and weblint to check on the correctness of your HTML tags. The PHP support is great.

If you work with a PHP-based site, I recommend Quanta Plus. And, even if your don't use PHP, Quanta Plus is a great tool for HTML-savvy Web page creators.