qgis - How to create an "area of interest" polygon mask?

I've created a GP tool using ArcGIS that creates an "area of interest" mask from selected features. Effectively it creates a new donut polygon layer where the hole was the previously selected features. Can I replicate this task in QGIS?

Example: For a specific map, I want to highlight a county within the state and mask the rest of the state and features outside the county with a gray, semi-transparent polygon layer above. Conceptually I would do it similar to this.

1. User loads state, county, and river layer


2. User selects county of interest


3. Run a utility (if it exists) that exports all of the unselected features to a donut shapefile without the originally selected polygon. If this layer mask was an "in memory" layer only available to QGIS, that would be just fine, too, maybe even better.

Does this type of tool or capability already exists within QGIS or will I have to write this as a custom function?

Here is how I did it in ArcGIS with ModelBuilder and the result I would be looking for, where the yellow layer and river layer exists statewide (all the way across the image), and the gray layer is transparent with a "donut hole", allowing the bright yellow portion to display through and draw the viewers attention the the area of interest:

Answer

Thank you @underdark for your direction to this solution. The fTools function "Difference" was exactly the tool that accomplished the task. However, different from your suggestion, I did not have to 1st create the "Polygon from Layer Extents".

Instead, the solution was:

1. Load the data layer (counties)


2. Select the feature of interest (County A)


3. Use the Vector->Geoprocessing->Difference tool


4. Select the county layer as both inputs, "use selected features" checked OFF for Input Vector Layer, ON for Difference Layer.

This will give the layer with all features from the input included EXCEPT the selected feature(s). Thanks!