adding attribute to catalog_category on store scope

Question

I've created a custom attribute programmatically by a resource setup script:

/** @var $installer Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Setup */
$installer->addAttribute('catalog_category', 'some_attr', array(
 'global' => Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Eav_Attribute::SCOPE_STORE,
 'group' => 'Display Settings',
 'input_renderer' => 'some/renderer',
 'input' => 'select',
 'label' => 'some label',
 'note' => 'some note',
 'required' => false,
 'sort_order' => 200,
 'source' => 'catalog/category_attribute_source_page',
 'type' => 'int',
));

The problem is with saving value to the created attribute. When I want to save any value to the category on a store scope the value is not saved. But when I first save the value on the global scope, then on the store scope everything works as expected - after that I can change the global scope value back to blank and the store scope is still working.

So I guess some kind of "initialization of the attribute" is executing when saving the global scope, but why is that? Did I do something wrong?

Answer 1

Unexpectedly I've found a solution by myself.

Explicitly setting is_visible_on_front to true and user_defined to false fixed the problem.

For that I've created an upgrade script which includes:

$installer->updateAttribute('catalog_category', 'some_attr', 'is_visible_on_front', true);
$installer->updateAttribute('catalog_category', 'some_attr', 'user_defined', false);