On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 8:48 AM, dstein64 <DStein64@gmail.com> wrote:

> Are there any functions that can launch external programs (not just
> command line programs, but also GUI programs) from Emacs? I know that
> I can access a shell, and call a program from there, but then emacs is
> not operable until I close the program. Prepending the command with
> `nohup' is useful, but for some reason it does not work as expected
> with all programs, including emacs. I would prefer another way of
> doing this - using a specific built-in of emacs lisp if one exists.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
>

try using M-x term it does not block your session while running.

if you want to roll your own have a look at start-process function.