What our customer's say!"Too many bugs, too limited", Well, for $.. you shouldn't expect much. The biggest problem I had was with bugs. Trying too move walls ended up with zig-zag lines. Having the roof of my two story house ending up over the first floor. And, most frustrating of all, repeated crashing when trying to print out a design. I swapped an 11" x 17" pad of graph paper for this product and came out $.. ahead but I would have had better results with the graph paper.
"Landscape Design was useless", I knew for 9.99 I shouldn't expect much but the landscape design portion of this package was useless. I couldn't get hardly anything out of it other than model pictures of certain types of gardens. Certainly that's not worth the money.
"Difficult to use", I used the 1999 version for W95/98, which received an Editor's Choice award from Computer Times, however, I found this program difficult to use and lacking in flexibility. The 3-D features are nice, but getting a basic layout was very difficult to do, particularly since my lot is an odd shape. The help screens are not very helpful, especially in getting your basic design down. There were many pre-designed landscapes, but they didn't "fit" my situation. Limited selection of types and size of trees, shrubs, and flowers. I am an above average user of computers and software, but I don't have experience in design or drawing.
"You get what you pay for!!", Purchased this for my wife, who is somewhat computer-inept. Decided to preview it myself, so I could offer her help with it later on; however, it was I who needed the help! Very difficult interface,with No "undo" feature, or "back" button for duffers to erase the inevitable mistakes.
This is an extremely maddening bit of software, which I am going to send back ASAP, and trade for something a bit more expensive, but hopefully, with a shorter leaning curve....
Did I mention that in addition to no printed docs (a real pet peeve of mine) there is no OPTION of printing the docs yourself; only an extremely unhelpful "help" file.
My advice? Forget this one!
"Home Design 3D -a lot for the $", AutoCad or even Micrografx Designer it is not, but this little package provides quick almost painless floor plans and surprisingly useful 3D renderings. The learning curve is very short, particularly if you have some experience with other drawing software. Unlike some other very inexpensive software, this one gives you much, much more than you pay for. My biggest disappointment is the lack of flexibility and features found in the more powerful -and much more expensive- programs. Having a layers feature, for example, would greatly improve this program. Everything considered, this is a definite winner!
