Sublime Text 2's “Goto Anything” (or instant search) for Emacs?

Question

I tried out Sublime Text 2 recently, and I found Goto Anything superbly useful for navigating source code (Ctrl-P file@symbol seems to work really well). Is there something simi

Answer 1

Just use helm.

It is perhaps more configuration than you asked for, but once you get it configured how you like, it should be quite comfortable. Very much like Emacs ;).

And you should file a bug with Thierry for getting some more newbie friendly defaults. He is quite responsive with issues.

helm-multi-occur

Primarily multi-buffer interactive "occur" is provided through helm-multi-occur. If you execute the command, you'll notice that you have to pick some buffers first (use C-SPC to select from the list, M-SPC to select all). Then you can enter your query at the next prompt. It's easy to make your own version that skips the buffer selection like so:

(eval-after-load "helm-regexp"
    '(setq helm-source-moccur
           (helm-make-source "Moccur"
               'helm-source-multi-occur :follow 1)))

(defun my-helm-multi-all ()
  "multi-occur in all buffers backed by files."
  (interactive)
  (helm-multi-occur
   (delq nil
         (mapcar (lambda (b)
                   (when (buffer-file-name b) (buffer-name b)))
                 (buffer-list)))))

helm-buffers-list

Often you don't care about the exact occurrences of the query string, but want a list of all buffers that contain it.

helm-buffers-list has some tricks up its sleeve. The first symbol you specify is filtering by major-mode, and you can use the "@" prefix to narrow the list to buffers that contain a string.

To wit, "ruby @prompt" will show you a list of buffers whose major-mode contains "ruby" and whose contents contains "prompt". Or you can just use "@prompt" to show all buffers that contain "prompt".

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Powerful and comfortable once you get used to it.

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EDIT modified my-helm-multi-all to enable helm-follow-mode.

EDIT 2 update helm-follow-mode code to reflect helm changes.

EDIT 3 updated again to reflect helm changes