Simple Graphic Interface:
There's an older guy (65+) here who has recently tried to get into CAD, word processing, etc. Following the enthusiastic recommendations of various local VW users, he bought VW. He hasn't found it as easy as I did when I began. He didn't find the intuitive visual guides I did in 1988. At last report, he's still struggling, he's not very computer literate. He's been referred to Archoncad's training manuals.
He's new to computers. A visual person, used to manual drawing, not really a computer enthusiast. Like most of us, he just wants to produce:
? Easy sketches of design ideas, prefably with simple 3D models clients can understand
? Developed Design drawings he can use for Town Planning Applications: plans, elevations, sections and 3D's
? Basic working drawings (2d is ok, but 3D is better - Client changes from Developed Design need to be easy to make)
? Comprehensive working drawings: plans, elevations, sections and 3D's, all live, with dimensions, notes etc., able to extra details easily.
As far as I know, he's not using the spreadsheets.
A drawing/visual interface for every task would be my wish. Even for creating and editing hatches. Maybe we could just paste a texture (sources from anywhere?) or pattern or series of lines into an object, rather than the complex hatch edit interface. (What you see is what you get.) (This may, of course be difficult to programme.)
The file sizes are important too - clients often do not have the capacity to download large files via email, especially if they are in country areas with poor internet services.
The size of elevations files is a problem for sending files to Clients via emails.
Easy visuals for training and interaction with the software for ordinary folk (as opposed to computer wizards), like worked examples in MOVIE form, would be a useful training tool that can be provided with the software.
VW remains a good product - for the sole practitioner architect, the best value around. I wouldn't use anything else. I make these suggestions purely as contructive feedback in the hope of both broadening our user base, and making life easier for everyone, especially the less sophicticated user, of which, I believe, there are thousands, myself included.
Thanks for the discussion.