How do you quickly navigate inside a source file using emacs ?

Here are some ways to move around. The first two are in vanilla Emacs. (There are previous functions corresponding to the next functions mentioned.)

• C-M-e and C-M-a: Move to next "defun" (function definition).

• Imenu, if you know the name of the thing (e.g. a definition) you`re looking for. (Various libraries let you complete/filter and cycle among candidates.)

• next-visible-thing. Moves to end of next THING. First nonconsecutive use prompts for THING type. Or use next-visible-thing to define such a command for a specific kind of THING (so no prompt needed for the kind).

  Requires library thing-cmds.el, which requires hide-comnt.el.

  Predefined THINGS (library thingatpt+.el needed for some):

  sexp, button, char, char-same-line, color, comment, decimal-number, defun, email, filename, hex-number, line, list, list-contents, non-nil-symbol-name, number, overlay, page, paragraph, region-or-word, sentence, string, string-contents, symbol, symbol-name, unquoted-list, url, whitespace, whitespace-&-newlines, word

  "Visible" means invisible text is skipped. Option ignore-comments-flag controls whether to also ignore text in comments.

• Command fw-to-next-thing. Moves to the start of the next THING (unlike next-visible-thing, which moves to its end).

  Requires libraries find-where.el and thingatpt+.el needed for some).

  Library find-where.el lets you get something at a position where an arbitrary predicate is true (not just a position at the start of a text THING), or move to such a position.

  E.g., function fw-next-thing returns the next THING and its position, and command fw-to-next-thing goes there.

  E.g., this defines a command to move to the beginning of the next sexp:

    (defun to-next-sexp (n)
      "Go to next start of a sexp."
      (interactive "p")
      (fw-to-next-thing 'sexp nil n))
  

  Likewise, for fw-next-where and fw-to-next-where, which look for the next place and some data where some predicate is satisfied.

  See the Commentary in find-where.el.

• Commands in library isearch-prop.el to search within the text of certain things.

  E.g., isearchp-imenu-non-interactive-function searches only within (or only outside of) definitions of functions that are not commands. isearch-property-forward searches only within text that has (or doesn't have) a given text or overlay property. isearchp-zones-forward searches only within (or only outside) the text of a given set of zones (i.e., within a noncontiguous region).

• The old library hideif.el lets you hide text that's within ifdefs.

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/thing-cmds.el

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/hide-comnt.el

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/find-where.el

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/thingatpt%2B.el

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/isearch-prop.el