Tested with Emacs 29.1

firstly-search

Typing any printable character moves cursor with incremental search. Supported modes:

• For Dired File manager - Modern navigation like in Thunar, Delphin, Windows and MacOS file managers.

• For Package Menu - fast search in package names.

• For Buffer Menu - fast selection of buffer by name.

This is minor mode for Emacs text editor. No external dependencies required.

Pay attention, standard keys: i, k, d, m is rebinded to M- and C-M- prefix, by default. You may rebind manually.

Features

• support for modes: Dired, Package Menu, Buffer Menu.
• C-n and C-p is used during searching as C-s isearch-forward and C-r isearch-backward commands.
• any printable character activate isearch-navigation. Modifiers used for commands.
• C-m or RET quit search and allow quickly select item.
• disable itself in Editable Dired mode (wdired-mode).

Activation

Add this lines to your configuration Init file: ~/.emacs, ~/.emacs.d/init.el, ~/.config/emacs/init.el:

;; Dired
(require 'firstly-search-dired)
(add-hook 'dired-mode-hook #'firstly-search-dired-mode)
;; Package menu
(require 'firstly-search-package)
(add-hook 'package-menu-mode-hook #'firstly-search-package-mode)
;; Buffer Menu
(require 'firstly-search-buffermenu)
(add-hook 'Buffer-menu-mode-hook #'firstly-search-buffermenu-mode)
;; Bookmarks
(require 'firstly-search-bookmarks)
(add-hook 'bookmark-bmenu-mode-hook #'firstly-search-bookmarks-mode)

Customization

M-x customize-group RET firstly-search
M-x customize-group RET firstly-search-buffermenu
M-x customize-group RET firstly-search-package
M-x customize-group RET firstly-search-dired

demo

Note

I recommend to highlight current line.

(add-hook 'dired-mode-hook #'hl-line-mode)

Another implementation

• dired-explorer.el package have the same functionality for Dired mode.
• 2009 dired-lis https://github.com/weikent/emacs/blob/master/lisps/dired/dired-lis.el or http://code.google.com/p/dea/source/browse/trunk/my-lisps/dired-lis.el

known bugs

• in Buffer Menu C-g do not break search completely.