Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to trying to understand the acs_attributes table... what are sort_order, static_

Sort order is used for displaying the attributes of a particular object_type in a predetermined order.

static_p indicates whether the attribute is common to all instances of a particular object_type or whether it can be different for each instance.  If static_p is true, then all instances of the object_type will have the same value for the attribute.

The pretty_name only needs to be unique for a particular object_type.  For instance if you had object types foo and bar, they could both have an attribute with a pretty name of "Baz".