Re: Short explanation for & in key ! of dired

[joakim]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> address@hidden writes:
>>>> Another usual problem for newbies to how to execute multiple
>>>> commands asynchronously.  The trick is to rename the existing
>>>> buffer *Async Shell Command*, but this is unobvious.
>>>
>>> Many times I thought to myself I'd prepare a patch to let the async
>>> buffer be renamed when prefixing c-u, like shell buffers, but I've never
>>> gotten around to it.
>>
>> I'd like C-u to just discard output, since 99% of the time, that's what
>> people really want these days.  Actually I'd like to make that default.
>
> If I want different commands accumulating asynchronous output, I'll open
> shell buffers for them.  When I start a command asynchronously, I don't
> want it interfering with my normal operation.  The asynchronous buffer
> is a nuisance in that regard.  It's also a nuisance that commands
> started that way will die together with Emacs when Emacs is stopped.
>
> If we gain a new command M-&, I would not particularly mind the current
> M-! behavior for background commands (I would just likely never use it).
> But I definitely would want to have M-& to dissociate the commands it
> starts.  That would be a new command, yes, not a variation of the old
> one.  I can live with that.

To clarify, I use ! in dired to start things like Gimp, Inkscape
Gqcomicbook, and Evince on files. I want those to be backgrounded and I
want to bea ble to run more than one instance. I'm not super-interested
in command output, but it wont hurt either.

To achieve this I today have to do this in dired:

! gimp ? & RET
m-x rename-buffer gimpbuf1 RET

If this could be reduced to:

& gimp RET

I'd be happier! But, ok, thats my use-case, and I dont really know how
other people use dired. 
-- 
Joakim Verona