Class AEState

object --+
         |
        AEState

Abstract base class for objects containing data that will have their data serialized to disk or configured by the user. All new* methods construct Setting objects which contain metadata describing setting values for the purpose of checking bounds, generating configuration dialogs, etc.

All subclasses of AEState should override init and getGroups. The init method should be used to create new settings and initialize non-setting instance variables. The overriden init does not need to invoke any base class init methods to create inherited settings. All baser class settings are created in the __init__ constructor instead. The getGroups method should call newGroup to create group objects containing the names of related settings to aid the generation of configuration dialogs. Group objects themselves also have newGroup methods to support nested groupings.

Two attribute names are reserved by AEState objects. settings is the dictionary containing all Setting instances. dirty is a set that stores the names of settings that have been modified in the current instance. The list is automatically reset when the instance is persisted. The isDirty, makeClean, iterDirty methods may be used to check if any part of the state is dirty, clear the list of dirty attributes, and iterate over the names and values of the dirty attributes to enable optimization at higher levels.