force categorical treatment of user annotations (#1663)

client/src/annoMatrix/loader.js

@@ -90,10 +90,10 @@ export default class AnnoMatrixLoader extends AnnoMatrix {
     If an array, it must be of same size as nObs and same type as Ctor
 		*/
     colSchema.writable = true;
-    const col = colSchema.name;
+    const colName = colSchema.name;
     if (
-      _getColumnSchema(this.schema, "obs", col) ||
-      this._cache.obs.hasCol(col)
+      _getColumnSchema(this.schema, "obs", colName) ||
+      this._cache.obs.hasCol(colName)
     ) {
       throw new Error("column already exists");
     }
@@ -109,11 +109,9 @@ export default class AnnoMatrixLoader extends AnnoMatrix {
     } else {
       data = new Ctor(this.nObs).fill(value);
     }
-    o._cache.obs = this._cache.obs.withCol(col, data);
-    o.schema = addObsAnnoColumn(this.schema, col, {
-      ...colSchema,
-      writable: true,
-    });
+    o._cache.obs = this._cache.obs.withCol(colName, data);
+    _normalizeCategoricalSchema(colSchema, o._cache.obs.col(colName));
+    o.schema = addObsAnnoColumn(this.schema, colName, colSchema);
     return o;
   }
 

client/src/annoMatrix/schema.js

@@ -66,7 +66,12 @@ export function _isContinuousType(schema) {
 
 export function _normalizeCategoricalSchema(colSchema, col) {
   const { type, writable } = colSchema;
-  if (type === "string" || type === "boolean" || type === "categorical") {
+  if (
+    type === "string" ||
+    type === "boolean" ||
+    type === "categorical" ||
+    writable
+  ) {
     const categorySet = new Set(
       col.summarizeCategorical().categories.concat(colSchema.categories ?? [])
     );
@@ -79,4 +84,5 @@ export function _normalizeCategoricalSchema(colSchema, col) {
   if (colSchema.categories) {
     colSchema.categories = catLabelSort(writable, colSchema.categories);
   }
+  return colSchema;
 }