Vim: run shell command without acknowledgement
 

I've been playing around with some mapping in vim, and I'd like a few to run a command in a shell without opening a window at the bottom that requires pressing ENTER to close. In other words, I'd like to do something like ":!xterm &" without having to press return before I can go back to the file--I just want to launch an external program without confirmation.

jrdioko,

This worked for me to map function key 6 to open a separate xterm:
:map <F6> :!xterm&<CR><CR>
The shell flashed up for a split-second, but the second carriage return quickly brought back vim.

It seems strange I hadn't tried that before, but seems to work fine (although I still wonder if there's a better way to do it). Thanks.