Here is how I get a bunch of .GPX files into CacheMate, relatively painlessly.
I run Windows XP. My browser is FireFox. I think that helps because FireFox allows me to associate .GPX with the CacheMate File Converter program. My PDA is palm-OS based.
Here are the steps I have to go through:
1. Navigate to the cache webpage
2. Click the "GPS eXchange File (*.gpx)" button
3. (First time only) You have to tell Firefox how to open the file. I've already done it, so I can't walk through the steps, but in a nutshell you want to tell FireFox to "Open with" and then browse to the directory that has the CacheMate program in it, and then go into the File Converter directory and select the cmconvert.exe file.
4. Then, click OK and the file goes directly into CacheMate converter, without saving the .GPX file to your hard drive.
5. the converter runs automatically, you have to accept your download options and it imports the file.
6. Highlight the cache name and click "save". Save as any name you want. This is a .PRC file.
7. (the cool step) the converter automatically puts the file in your upload area, so the next hotsync puts it into your PDA, and the next time you run CacheMate on your PDA it finds the file and integrates it.
8. (If desired) manually delete the .PRC file.
9. Repeat with the next cache.
Gripes and wishes (with this system. I'd also like to be able to download multiple caches as GPX instead of LOC):
A. Each time this happens, a new instance of the cmconvert.exe is launched. I'd really like it if things were set up so that the new GPX file got loaded into the currently-running copy, and then you could do a single Save operation at the end.
B. You have to acknowledge an awful lot of popups for cmconvert. I'd be glad if the status line were used to indicate how many points were uploaded, rather than acknowledging a popup, for example.
C. You have to tell CacheMate about each cache separately when you run it. I wish there were some faster options there.
But overall, it's been a workable solution and I can live with it.