Once an annotation is embedded, there is no reversing that. For text annotations, you may not be able to edit the text anymore, and some of the text settings will be gone (as the PDF specification does not support as many options). For stamps, they will be converted to images that can't be edited. This is also true for things like crescendos, piano staves, and arrows. Freeform annotations should still be editable while embedded, and this is the same for most of the supported shapes and highlights. Leaving the option enabled to allow editing of embedded annotations requires reloading the PDF in an editable state (due to limitations with the PDF library) which breaks the seamless transition between viewing and annotating the score. In some rare cases with some PDFs, users have had stability issues with that setting enabled due to conflicts with the PDF library.
As far as why I don't let it stay enabled, it only takes me getting a few emails from furious users that encounter problems related to the annotations being embedded and the change being irreversible for me to not want to deal with the headaches of that customer support. Some users have encountered issues in rare cases where their settings seem to have been switched or modified without them actually making those changes, so if this setting was turned on due to that, it could cause some very big problems for users very quickly as all of their annotations suddenly become embedded when they go to annotate without them realizing it. Very few users have requested leaving that setting enabled. It's also enabled for the entire session - it's only when restarting the app that it gets toggled back off.
Like most things, if the majority of users start requesting that setting to be something that can be left on, then I will consider making the change. When only a few users ask for it, I'd rather take the safe stance that doesn't result in me having to deal with very upset users after their library gets messed up. My preference is still to solve this problem without the need for embedding (i.e. to add an option to sync annotations automatically between a snippet and the original, or a way to quickly copy annotations).
Mike
As far as why I don't let it stay enabled, it only takes me getting a few emails from furious users that encounter problems related to the annotations being embedded and the change being irreversible for me to not want to deal with the headaches of that customer support. Some users have encountered issues in rare cases where their settings seem to have been switched or modified without them actually making those changes, so if this setting was turned on due to that, it could cause some very big problems for users very quickly as all of their annotations suddenly become embedded when they go to annotate without them realizing it. Very few users have requested leaving that setting enabled. It's also enabled for the entire session - it's only when restarting the app that it gets toggled back off.
Like most things, if the majority of users start requesting that setting to be something that can be left on, then I will consider making the change. When only a few users ask for it, I'd rather take the safe stance that doesn't result in me having to deal with very upset users after their library gets messed up. My preference is still to solve this problem without the need for embedding (i.e. to add an option to sync annotations automatically between a snippet and the original, or a way to quickly copy annotations).
Mike