That's my major complaint with what's otherwise a great application, and one that can be addressed by writing a script outside the editor. Quanta is not an editor for people who want to keep their macros within a single app, or who don't like to code to get nondevelopment work done.
My other quibble with Quanta is that after I tagged something and decided I want to remove the tags, "undo" (Ctrl-Z) didn't simply remove the tags, but also deleted all the text within my tags. Occasionally, it even erased additional text.
Still, this is one of the better available text editors for Linux addressing the intersection of writing, content editing and light coding. Some more in-application macro writing and better "undo" for tagging would make this an ideal replacement on Linux for my beloved NoteTab Pro.
Quanta Plus ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10):
Ease of learning and use: 8
Look and feel: 9
Content editing (spell check, search/replace, etc.): 9
Simple HTML editing (bold, line breaks, ordered lists, etc.): 10
Customization (macro power, ease of creating): 6
Total: 42
The bottom line
So, did I find the single killer text editor I'd been seeking? No, but I uncovered several good applications that should meet the requirements of users with different needs. If I switch to Linux full time, I'm confident I could stitch together a couple of separate apps that would largely do what I need.
But I bet I'll be even happier once that planned UltraEdit version for Linux is released.