Comment 54 for bug 521533

(In reply to lutz.wrage from comment #50)
> Is there any use case that justifies storing form data in
> ~/.kde/share/apps/okular/docdata/ given that the same data can be stored in
> the pdf itself?
> It seems to me that there isn't.

While I consider the current behavior undesirable, it does have its advantages. In fact, it's the reason I decided to use okular for my taxes. Here's the use case:

1. Generate some forms automatically (e.g., opentaxsolver computes my taxes and fills in government forms).
2. Resulting forms require some manual tweaks (e.g., check boxes, fill in additional fields).
3. Discover forms need to be regenerated to correct a mistake. Modify inputs and return to 1.

In this scenario, the work in 2 is lost if the results have been stored in the pdf, but is retained if the values are stored elsewhere, as okular currently does. Even if the pdf in 2 is saved under a different name, so that the results are not literally lost, one must manually identify the changed information and reenter it.

There is another scenario in which the recreation of the information is less desirable. If some of the manually entered information in 2 depends on the values from 1, e.g., you manually enter line 55 as a copy of line 32 but the automatically generated line 32 changes, then the previous manual data may be invalid.