RE: Working with different projects in Emacs

[Drew Adams]

> I work in several projects. Every project has a list of files
> associated to it (for instance several source code files or latex
> files). I would like that every time I start working in one of these
> projects, all the files could be found quickly without specifying the
> whole path.
> 
> The filesets almost serve this purpose, but the problem is that they
> open all the files in the fileset, and I just want to be able to
> auto-complete its filename (when I open a file using C-x C-f).
> 
> File cache is not an option, since I need several "caches" for each
> project and I don't want to load them all when emacs starts.
> 
> And I'm unable to understand Icicles documentation (and Icicles is
> more powerful than the tool I'm looking for).
> 
> Until now, I was able to find a solution for every problem (in the
> good sense) in emacs, but for this one I cannot find one.
> What can I do?

If all of the files for a given project are in or under the same directory, then
moving (e.g. `cd') to that directory should let you complete file names there.
IOW, `M-x cd', which sets `default-directory', which is the directory, by
default, for file-name completion.

And you can easily write a command that takes you directly to your project
directory, so you don't have to enter it each time.

If the files of a project are in multiple directories, then you can use Dired,
passing it the file list explicitly. Then mark specific files in that Dired
buffer and then act on the marked files.