...* The alphanumeric filter supports boolean operators || (or) and && (and).
......Example: The expression "Ae || Ar || As || B[ers]" will load all map
.........layer that have Ae, Ar, As, Be, Br or Bs in their file names.
......Note 1: && has higher priority, i.e., "a || b && c " becomes
........."(a || b) && c"
......Note 2: Boolean operators are combined with match modes, i.e., the
.........expression "a || b" with a match mode 'Starts with' becomes
........."^a || ^b" and will find all layers whose file names START WITH
........."a" or "b".

...Case insensitive option for the alphanumeric filter (Configuration tab).

...Accent insensitive option for the alphanumeric filter. This option requires
......the Python lib 'unidecode' and can be activated in the Configuration
tab.

...Performance improvement in alphanumeric filter. RE patterns are compiled
......and reused.

...* New bounding box based filter for raster and vector files. The bounding
......box can be load from the current extent or specified by hand.
......Raster and vector layers are checked if their spatial extent
......intersects with the specified bbox or if they lay inside of it.
......This operation (intersects/contains) can be specified in the dialog.

...* Modified class filter structure to easily support more filters. Soeren
has
......removed the combined filter class and replaced it with a filter list,
......that can handle any number of filters. It is assured in the code that
......the bounding box filter is applied after the alphanumeric and the
......geometry/raster type filter, since the check of the raster and vector
......layers extent may take a while.

...Bug fix: Similar to the bug fixed in v.2.2 related to trailing slashes, the
......same bug was occurring on Windows (e.g., "c:\folder\").
...(*: Contribution by Söeren Gebbert)