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[goatherder]

 I have a few questions for MC14 in general.

- Auto-sync. Could it actually auto-sync, i.e. not have to go into the handheld pane?
- Podcasts. In a similar manner to the above it *seems* that I have to click into Podcasts for it to start downloading updates. Is this the case or am I doing something wrong?
- Could the left pane status stick? I'd like the Playlists expanded all the time for example.

[glynor]

Here are some answers!

• Auto-Sync:  Yes.  Plug in your handheld and go to Tools > Options > Handheld (or click the Options button in the Sync Handheld Action Window).  In there, you can enable the Auto-Sync on Connect option.  Please note, this option only appears if you have checked at least one box in the "included in your sync" panel on the right-hand side of the options dialog.  Obviously, it can't auto-sync if you don't tell it ahead of time what playlist or media to sync over.  I find the best bet is to create a few Smartlists for your handheld device, and have those synced over to the handheld on connect.
  
  
• Podcast Auto-Download: Unless something is broken, they should auto-download so long as you have that function enabled (in the View Header of the Podcasts view).  Also, check the settings in Tools > Options > Podcasts to make sure those options are set appropriately.  One thing to note... There is a bit of a delay between when you first launch MC and when it starts checking for and downloading Podcasts.  I suspect this is because the application has to do a lot of "startup tasks" and it delays some things for a bit in order to keep the application responsive on initial launch (and to speed up the launch process itself).  However, if you open MC and leave it running for a couple of minutes, it should auto-download Podcasts all on it's own.  If it isn't, something might be broken.
  
  
• Keeping the Tree State Persistent:  Sort-of.  This is something that people have asked for occasionally (mostly remembering the hidden state of the Tree or the Action Window).  However, this has apparently proved to be very confusing to novice users in usability testing that JRiver has done.  The idea is that if you don't know what you are doing, and you manage to get yourself completely lost, you can always close and reopen MC to get yourself back to a "known state".  If it remembered these settings on every launch, a novice user might accidentally hide the tree or the Action Window and then never be able to get it back.  That said... If you check Tools > Options > Startup, there is a Startup Interface Location option.  You can set this to either "Playlists" or "Last Location" and then MC will remember and launch with that item in the tree pre-selected.  So, you can have it jump to the Playlists item in the tree on launch.  You just can't have it completely hide part of the UI on launch, and it will always start up with the tree scrolled up to the top (so the user can at least see the Audio, Video, and Images items in the tree).

[goatherder]

Thanks for the reply.

Re: Auto-sync. I'm aware of that control, but the problem is - as I said - that it doesn't seem to start to auto-sync unless I go to click on the Sync Handheld control. It's a major - and dealbreaking these days - hassle to have to wait another 5 minutes when I'm on my way out because I didn't click on that when I connected the handheld.

Re: Podcast I'll keep my eye on this and do some tests by not going into Podcasts, shutting down MC after a while and seeing if I have updates. Basically the situation seems to me to be that unless I go into Podcasts, it won't start downloading new episodes.

Tree state: If users can grasp it in iTunes, I'm sure they can grasp it in MC. I'm also aware of the startup interface location but the interest is more e.g. for it to open with my nested playlists visible in the state I last left it at.

[glynor]

Handheld Auto-Sync worked fine for me the last time I used it.  I'll have to check again next time my wife brings her Nano home.

For the Tree State... I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on whether it should be able to retain it's state, I was just explaining the historical rationale for why it is the way it is.  In other words, you don't need to convince me... I don't have any say.