I just came across the Treemacs package that I wish I knew earlier. Treemacs is an Emacs package that provides a tree layout file explorer for Emacs. With Treemacs, one can easily navigate through a big project tree all in Emacs.
Installation is simple through ELPA. I have the following lines in my .emacs configuration:
(setq package-archives '(("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") ))
(when (>= emacs-major-version 24)
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)
)
In Emacs, run “M-x package-refresh-contents”, then “package-install treemacs.” After installation, run “M-x treemacs” brings up the tree view.