[Bug?] Evil does not activate when loaded via customize

[Frank Fischer]

Am 29.10.2014 um 17:15 schrieb Trevor Murphy:
> Hi, list!
> 
> I'm perverse and want to install Evil via package.el and load it 
> via customize.  I notice that Evil does not turn on at startup 
> when I customize evil-mode to t.  I still have to explicitly call 
> (evil-mode 1) in my init-file.
> 
> Is this known behavior?  

No, at least for me.

> If so, is it a bug?  

Perhaps.

> If so, can I fix it 
> somehow?

I don't know, never tried.

But, is it supposed to work? I see the following problem: the variable
`evil-mode` is defined in Evil and is not known to Emacs until Evil is
loaded (i.e. until `(require 'evil)`). If you customize `evil-mode` to
t, this will change the value of this variable. But Emacs does not know
that it has to load Evil to actually get the correct definition of this
variable (for Emacs it's just a variable without any relation to some
package).

I do not know if it is possible to have something like an 'autoload
variable', i.e. as soon as a variable is customized Evil loads a
corresponding package. It is possible for functions (like the
`evil-mode` function), though.

Best regards,
Frank