Subject: Re: [h-e-w] Emacs for Windows: Launch better from a command prompt

From: "K. Frank" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 17:54:13 -0500

Hello Andrew!

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Andrew Pennebaker
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> Currently, Emacs ties up the Command Prompt until the user quits Emacs. In
> Git Bash, you can hack around this with an ampersand (&), but the default
> behavior should really be to fork a thread for Emacs and immediately return
> terminal control to the user.

With my old version, 23.1.1, "start", the windows analog of "&", as in:

   start emacs

works (although emacs then opens up a new, vaguely annoying console
window of its own).

I believe the "official" approach (at least with my old version) is to use
the companion helper program, runemacs, as in:

   runemacs

This, I believe, will do what you are asking (although it does seem to
flicker a console window briefly).

> Can we default the next version to this behavior?

I'll let the experts answer this one.

But do let me note that emacs (at least my old version) still supports
the old, text-only, console mode, as in:

   emacs -nw

("nw" being, I believe, an abbreviation of "no window")

I have no idea whether having emacs default to "detaching" itself
from the console would make continuing to support "-nw" more
difficult.

> Cheers,
> Andrew Pennebaker
> www.yellosoft.us

Good luck.

K. Frank