I'm having some trouble trying to do what seems like it should be relatively simple. Here's my goal:
Create a cache of mp3 files on an external drive that mirror my flac files, so that later I can select any subset of the mp3 files to sync to a handheld (iPod Touch).
I've defined a virtual handheld, and enabled caching via a stack. When I select the Handheld under Devices and Drives, it goes through a full 4 minute analyzing process analyzing 14770 files where MC is totally unusable. I can tolerate this once.
Now, I want to send a playlist to the (virtual) handheld. I select the files in the playlist, and drag them onto the Drag Files Here icon. Nothing happens; it still shows 14770 files to be synced. It appears my drag does not replace the current list, so I suspect I have to delete the current sync list. So I delete the sync list, and drag the files that I want to sync, and then I can do the sync.
Now, after the sync is complete, it starts that darned analyzing process all over again, locking up MC for another 4 minutes! When it ends, I get a list of files "In Queue".
Now I want to sync another playlist. So once again, I select all of the sync list again, and delete. All files are deleted except the files that were just synced previously, which are re-analyzed and then labeled as "In Queue". This doesn't make sense. So I select those files too, and delete, and now they are gone. And now I can sync another playlist, starting again from the steps above.
This process is WAY too cumbersome, time consuming, and not very intuitive. Surely there must be a better way, or I'm doing something very wrong?