learning HD Pro 6.0

[bapannell]

I purchased Pro 6 after using previous HD "consumer" versions to lay out floor plans and then manually draw complete plans. My hope was to be able to accomplish more with HD Pro 6, such as roof designs, under roof second floors, etc. I must say I am extremely frustrated with this software. I am having numerous problems. I feel like I am walking an elephant through a minefield in a hail storm!

Evertime I called for "technical" help, I was treated like a dumbass and told I needed "training". I gave up a few weeks back and called the phone number printed in literature to exercise my 60 trial day return option. I was required to leave a message, but never received a return phone call.

I continue to have hope, but at the age of 53 I am not sure I will live long enough to get through the learning curve for this product. I can learn the "how too" quickly, but the interrelationships of functions and the problems are wearing me out.

One problem as a "part timer" is that I work in "spurts" and am not able to call during normal business hours. It is also difficult to always find time to use this forum (which is some improvement).

Is there any more detailed printed material for training with PRO 6.0 ? Are there any local training sessions offered in USA? Will the program be debugged and updated?

What are my options in returning this software, I am now approaching 90 days since purchase.

[Dan Park]

Currently we offer classroom training in many locations for Chief Architect. We can also offer you a customized training session via the internet for Home Designer Pro. You would be speaking on the phone to a certified Chief Architect trainer and could customize your training for the specific problems you are having or we could create a custom training session for you. We do not currently offer classroom training for Home Designer.

I noticed you mentioned several software problems but I do not see any information on what these issues are. If you do have software issues to report with the product you can send reports to beta@homedesignersoftware.com and we will file them or you can contact technical support and we can file them. We also take numerous feature requests each day and file those in our database.

Although the software is easy to use and has a lot of features, the complexity of these features can take a while to learn. Like any good tool, practice and training will hone your skills and you will find, over time, that you will be able to more easily create your plans. The manual roof tools in the Pro version can take some time to learn. However, we have found that with the right training and some practice that drawing manual roof planes can be much faster than trying to find the correct roof settings for your walls and using the automatic roof generation tools.

If you are interested in learning how to use the product more effectively please feel free to contact me. You can send me email at dan@homedesignersoftware.com or you can call our support line and ask for me. If I am available I will be happy to take your call and discuss any issues you are having with the product.