Average Rating: 
Rating: - Too complicated !
I am very computer literate, I run a sophisticated accounting package and a customer management database program at work, along with the usuals Microsoft Excel, Word, Access. And alot more. But THIS software is just too much. I bagged it once i realized that just learning how to use it could take up a whole weekend.... I had the same problem with 3D Home Architect 5.0... I loved version 3.0, it took awhile to learn 4.0 but so worth it... and I can't make heads or tails of version 5.0. Bruderbund people! Why are you forsaking us?
Rating: - Very Difficult to Use
My husband and I are both college educated (my husband is an electrical engineer for a high tech company) and we are struggling to use this product. It takes a lot of work to get a landscape set up and seems more appropriate for landscape professionals. The plant encyclopedia pictures are not very clear and there does not appear to be a search mechanism within the encyclopedia. We consider the cost a waste of money and are disappointed that we can't return the product. We will be designing our yard with pen, paper and plant encyclopedias easily found on the internet.
Rating: - Frustrating
I was excited about getting this software, and had visions of cutting and pasting properly-scaled trees and shrubs in a realistic map of my yard. That vision quickly vanished as I muddled through this mess of a program. This program is not user friendly. There is a ton of information in there, somewhere, on hundreds of plants, trees, and shrubs. Viewing it is another matter. The lack of search features and a very confusing "plant filter" make finding a plant like looking for a needle in a haystack. Good luck finding the plant filter to begin with; it is well-hidden for some odd reason. The other buttons are similarly vague, with random drop boxes and pop-up windows that don't follow much rhyme or reason. Once you manage to add a tree to your plan (usually the wrong size and shape that you wanted), the cursor turns into a little contruction man, who stretches, curves, and moves objects. The problem is that it is hard to tell when he is going to curve the object, and when he's going to move it. The help file is the worst I've ever seen and provides nice tautologies like "the plan window contains an editable plan" and other vague definitions of things. I consider myself very computer savvy, but I don't have all week to devote to a new program as complicated as this. This program just tries to do too much, and was not thought out very well. My advice: get a pad of graph paper.
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