Home Plan Pro Review

Good for beginners, but need GUI re-design

Submitted by hasanhalabi on Tue, 2009-09-08 10:13.
Author's Product Rating:
Ease of Use: 
Effectiveness: 
Help/Support: 
The lowest price: 35.1$
You can buy it at RegNow for that price.
Pros:
Easy to draw with keyboard, good help, multi saving formats, light , compatible with Windows 7
Cons:
GUI, Lack of Action History Management, Lack of Familiar Keyboard Shortcuts, lack of complete help samples.
Review:

Home Plan Pro is a good application for beginners and people who want to deliver the idea. It has a lot of good functionality and you can draw a very accurate home sketch using the keyboard.
 
Also the help is connected well to the tools and full description for the tool is presented. On the other hand the help missing full step by step samples to create the basic sketches and no video tutorials are presented.
 
On my personal opinion the team should stop working on the functionality in the current time; where there is a lot them. It should start working on the GUI. The GUI uses a very old standard and controls. The application really needs a GUI designer!
 
A lot of data flow processes are represented in a complex way. As example when I try to change the color of the element I have first to select it --> right click (or use the toolbar) --> click on "Select" button -- > choose the color --> then select ok --> then another time ok !!! Why these huge number of clicks??! Simpler ways is placing the ok & cancel buttons on the color picker dialog and display it immediately.
 
This complex procedure is exists in all elements’ properties! Also the user must go through 2 or 3 steps to display a single property value for the element. A better way is the one exists in the Visual Studio .Net where all the properties are presented in one dockable panel, and each property has its own control to change it within the same panel.

Also the most familiar keyboard shortcuts are missing like (Ctrl + Z /Ctrl + Y) for undo/redo, and (Ctrl + +, Ctrl + -) for Zoom in/out.
 
Bottom of the line the application is good for beginners and amateurs, but ready it need a GUI re-building with a GUI designer in the team and a technical writer to write the full samples and video tutorials.

Conclusion:

Good for beginners and amateurs, but ready it need a GUI re-building with a GUI designer in the team.